


glory days

by mandaestella



Category: Actor RPF, Alexbelle, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies), The Hunger Games (Movies) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, UFC, famous Alex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 106,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandaestella/pseuds/mandaestella
Summary: alex is a professional mma fighter who can't seem to keep his personal life in check. his long-suffering agent and publicist, jackie, comes up with a plan, and no one involved seems remotely thrilled about it.





	1. don't blame you much for wanting to be free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i don't blame you much for wanting to be free  
> / i just wanted you to know  
> famous by kanye west

Jackie had been yelling at him for approximately forty-five minutes, and there was no sign of her slowing down anytime soon, much less stopping. Alex didn’t even dare risk a glance at the clock over his stove. Instead he sat there, slumped at the massive marble kitchen island, head pounding. He had drank way too much the night before and this early morning lecture was definitely his punishment for that.

He raised his eyebrows, nodding along to whatever Jackie was saying in an attempt to placate her. She had been his manager slash publicist for five years, ever since he had moved to Vegas at the ripe age of twenty-two and started fighting professionally. It was actually Jackie’s idea for him to move. She had found him in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, rescuing him from the sticks where he was winning every amateur fight he could book. “You have to come with me,” she had said, sitting across from him in the fight room after he had beat the hell out of some poor kid. “I promise you this if you do; I’ll make you a star.”

And here he was, five years later, in a penthouse apartment in Las Vegas, the reigning middleweight world champion of the UFC. The only problem he had, in fact, was that of his personal life.

“Are you even listening to me?” Jackie asked, slamming her phone down on the countertop so hard Alex thought it might crack.

“Yes,” he sighed, taking a huge swig of water and trying to not throw up all the Fireball that was still sloshing around in his stomach. “I just don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you’re saying it is.”

Jackie’s face turned as red as her hair. “I don’t think you’re understanding what is going on here. This girl is out there in the press saying that you got her pregnant.”

“Yeah but I didn’t.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“Yes,” he mumbled, even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about, especially not in front of Jackie. That girl knew all of his secrets. “I used a condom.”

“Condoms break, Alexander!” she shrieked.

“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands placatingly. “But it’s fine. She’s totally full of it. We’ll just ask her to prove that she’s pregnant, and then when she can’t, it’s not like anyone can do anything about it. Problem solved.”

“How many times have we gone through this now, Alex? Three? Four? I don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

“Listen.” Alex stood up, grabbing his water bottle, “Camp Valhalla” emblazoned across it in heavy script. “You gotta lighten up, Jackie. And I need to go lie down before my head explodes.”

“This isn’t over!” she called after him as he slunk away.

Jackie was a force of nature when she wanted to be, which was almost always. She did everything for him, from scheduling all of his appearances to negotiating his contracts to arranging for his car service, cleaning service, chiropractor appointments, and meal deliveries. He would be lost without her, and she knew that. She was far more than his publicist and agent; she was his best friend, and he felt bad a lot of the time for putting her through it. Then again, she did get fifteen percent, so how bad could he really feel?

It was unusual for the same person to be someone’s publicist and agent, Alex knew. But Jackie had been a publicist in her former life, before she went to law school, and it was part of her that she couldn’t just let go of. She had explained this to Alex many times, usually after he complained that if she was just his agent, she wouldn’t have to worry about his personal life. 

Alex knew he should be more careful, if not for his own sake then at least for Jackie’s sanity. This was the fourth girl who had come out of the woodwork, saying that she was pregnant and Alex was the father. It wasn’t true. It had never been true. But that didn’t stop Jackie from thinking, every time, that World War III was coming. 

The first time it had happened, he had gotten a little bit of a scare. The second time, he didn’t even tell Jackie. The third time, he had just rolled his eyes. And now, he didn’t even have a reaction. Even a little light blackmail got boring after a while. He knew that he should stop sleeping with random girls, especially those who were only interested in his money. They were easy enough to spot at least. They were the ones who came right up to him at parties, who noticed his expensive watch or six hundred dollar shirt, who smelled of desperation and Juicy Couture perfume. 

And yet, he kept bringing them home with him, kept sneaking them into the apartment at night like Jackie wouldn’t be the one to usher them out in the mornings, always shooting him a look over the girl’s shoulder. He could barely even remember the girl from a few weeks ago, had completely forgotten what she looked like until he woke up this morning to his phone blowing up, texts and calls and emails pouring in, Jackie barging into his room shortly after. 

She had ripped the door open, the shades flying up and light pouring into the room, making Alex’s hangover that much worse. “Kitchen! Now!” she shrieked at him, stalking out of the room as quickly as she had come. He knew that it would take much less energy to argue with her than to just go and hear her out, which was how he ended up shuffling out of his room at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. 

He had barely even had a chance to look at his phone, seeing only a headline and a picture of himself with this girl, stumbling out of the club a few weeks ago. He still couldn’t remember her name, and the articles didn’t name it, stating only that Alex was going to be a dad. In the past, they had just ignored the allegations, but these were the first ones that had been public. The others had just come by phone call or text, in the case of the second girl. He had forwarded the messages to Jackie, letting her handle it, but this one might be a little out of her depth. 

He collapsed back into bed, hitting the button on the side of his nightstand to lower the shades, the room plunging back into darkness. He meant to go back to sleep. He had to train in a few hours, and he was already in bad shape. But he couldn’t turn his mind off, his thoughts jumping back and forth between all the things he had to do before his next fight on New Year’s Eve and how much shit he would be in if Jackie couldn’t come up with some way to fix this.

He should have known better. Jackie always found a way. 

* * *

“No,” Alex said. He felt much better now, or at least he had, until Jackie came in and got him again, dragging him out of his bedroom to talk. They were in the giant sunken living room, which immediately told Alex that he was not going to like whatever Jackie was about to say. She only brought him into the living room for “tough talks.” 

“Alex, come on-”

“No, absolutely not. You’re out of your damn mind, Jackie.”

“You’re out of your damn mind if you think this one is just going to go away like the other ones did.”

“Why can’t it?”

“Because it’s out there, Alex.” She took a giant sip of coffee. “It’s a lot farther out there than the last ones, and I can’t bring it back on my own.”

The last three girls had silently disappeared due to massive payoffs by Jackie, through Alex’s bank account of course. He didn’t see this girl as any different. “She’ll take money, Jackie,” he sighed heavily, remembering how infatuated the girl had been with his apartment, his car, his lifestyle.

“No, she won’t,” Jackie snapped. “I already tried.”

“How much?”

Jackie hesitated. “One hundred.”

“Jesus Christ.” Alex leaned forward, putting his head in his hands. The last few had settled for about twenty-five thousand each, which was a small price to pay for some sanity and for Jackie’s head to stay firmly attached to her body. But if this girl wasn’t taking one hundred thousand, she probably wouldn’t take anything.

“Well, what does she want?”

Jackie shrugged. “She won’t say. She has a lawyer.”

“You’re a lawyer! Talk to them!”

“I’ve tried, Alex.” Jackie put a hand on his knee comfortingly. “That’s why I have a plan.”

“Your plan is stupid, Jackie.” 

She had looked nervous when he finally wandered into the living room, plopping down on the couch next to hers. “Okay,” he had said. “Spit it out.”

“You need a girlfriend.”

“This is really not the time for you to be trying to set me up with one of your law school friends again, Jackie. You know lawyers freak me out.”

“I’m not setting you up,” she cut him off firmly.

“Well then, I’m lost.” 

“You need a girlfriend,” Jackie repeated. “A fake girlfriend.”

And that’s when Alex had exploded. 

“We have no choice,” Jackie said now, her voice tired. “This girl has to want more than just money. She has to want to actually be with you.” He opened his mouth, but Jackie barrelled along, ignoring him completely. “And I know that’s not what you want. Which is fine, because this girl is a lunatic. But the only way we are going to effectively get rid of her is if you start dating someone. It has to be public. We need the press to pick up on it. And you need, at least for a few weeks until we get through this next fight, to calm down and stop bringing random girls back here.”

“So this is as much to control me as it is to get rid of the Looney Toon.”

Jackie smiled primly. “Maybe.”

“Let’s pretend for even one second that I agree to this. Who would agree to do this?”

“I have someone in mind.” Jackie grabbed her phone off the coffee table in front of her, checking her email quickly before putting it back down. 

“You’re crazy, Jackie.” Alex stood up, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck and cracking his back. “I have to go train.”

“This conversation is not over,” she yelled at his retreating back for the second time that day.

He decided to drive himself that day instead of calling a driver, taking the elevator all the way from the penthouse to his private underground garage, expensive cars that almost never got used spread out in front of him. He took the Jeep, arguably his least conspicuous car, even if it was giant and lifted with chrome everywhere.

It was only a five minute drive to the gym, the main reason Alex had chosen that apartment. Jackie had done all of the heavy lifting, of course, arranging showings and dealing with the realtors. Alex would have been happy living in a tiny little house off the strip, just him and a bunch of dogs, but Jackie wouldn’t allow it.

“Live a little, Alex,” she had said, trying to convince him. She spent days showing him Zillow listings for different apartments around the city. Alex had chosen this one, in addition to its proximity to the gym, because of the giant floor to length windows lining the outside of the apartment and presenting a staggering view of Las Vegas, lights glittering beneath him whenever it got dark. It made him feel like he wasn’t trapped in his own life, like the world was still giant around him.

The gym was always a nice change from the quiet apartment, always bustling and full of people. Alex was the main investor at the gym and the top fighter, which meant kids came from all over the country to train there, hoping that some of his talent would rub off on them. There were quite a few who had a lot of promise, and Alex’s plan upon retirement was to coach one of them, the way he had been coached by the greats.

The true great was Dayo Okeniyi, his own head coach. He had looked up to Dayo since he was a nineteen year old kid fighting in Des Moines, Iowa. He wanted into the UFC, just like everyone did, and Dayo, five years older than him, was a real live success story. He had grown up in Indiana, taking every amateur bout he could find, just like Alex was doing. And one day he moved to California to the epicenter of MMA, working his way up to a professional contract and winning every fight he ever had. He retired three years later, moving to Nevada, and the first thing Alex did when he landed in Las Vegas was walk into Dayo’s gym, head held high, and beg Dayo to train him. 

It had taken a few weeks for Dayo to agree, finally worn out by the combined attack of Alex and Jackie. Alex knew it was really Jackie he had to thank for that - the girl was more persuasive than he would ever be. A couple of years later, and they opened a new gym, Alex providing the majority of the financial backing and Dayo signing a contract to be Alex’s head coach for the duration of his career. Three years later, they were here, gearing up for a New Year’s Eve title fight. 

“Alex!” Two people flanked Alex immediately upon entering the gym. “You’re late.”

“I know,” he sighed, hiking his gym bag higher up on his shoulder. “You would not believe the morning I’ve had.” The guys smirked, looking at each other. “Oh, shut up.”

“She’s cute.” Mark, his judo coach, shrugged, trying unsuccessfully to keep the shit-eating grin off his face. “I think you should go for it.”

“You’re gonna be a great dad,” Nick said. Nick was his brother, and at this moment, Alex was seriously regretting inviting him out to Vegas three years ago to be his striking coach. 

“Shut up!” Alex shoved them away, both of them bouncing back immediately. 

“Jackie’s gonna leave you if you keep doing this.” Mark shook his head. “That girl is barreling towards a breakdown because of you.”

“Jackie is fine.” Alex threw his bag down by the mirrors lining one wall of the gym. 

It was the first of November, and Alex was scheduled to fight in two months. He only had a few weeks before fight camp started, and he didn’t feel anywhere near ready. He never did, but he really couldn’t afford any distractions right now, fake girlfriend, fake baby mama, or otherwise. He stripped his shirt off, ignoring the stares of everyone else in the gym, and jumped on the treadmill for a four mile warmup. It only took a few minutes for Alex to forget about all the shitty things going on in his life, the familiarity of the gym washing everything else away.

The second he jumped off the treadmill, Mark was there with the jump rope, following Alex over to the mats in the far corner of the gym, waiting for Alex to finish his five sets of five minutes. Next came the shadowboxing, three sets of five minutes each. By the time he had finished that, Alex was dripping with sweat, grabbing a towel to wipe off his face and the back of his neck. 

“Come on, man,” Mark said, bringing his water bottle over. “We’re not even halfway through.”

“It’s all that alcohol,” Nick said, popping up on his other side. “I can smell it coming off you. Fireball?”

Alex rolled his eyes, squirting a stream of water into his mouth and spitting it at his brother. Nick laughed, dancing nimbly out of his reach. As soon as Alex was ready, Nick started wrapping his hands quickly, the tape moving so fast it was a blur. 

“Okay,” Nick said, patting the heavy bag hanging in front of them. “Three rounds. Five minutes each. High intensity.”

Alex sighed, rolling his shoulders back. His bad shoulder was hurting something fierce, and fifteen minutes on the bag wasn’t going to make it feel any better. He made a mental note to ask Jackie to schedule an appointment with his chiropractor before the fight. 

They ended the practice with another fifteen minutes of sparring, half with Nick and half with Mark. By the time they were done, Alex had collapsed on the ground in the middle of the ring, chest heaving and sweat pouring off him. He had definitely worked all of the alcohol out of his system at this point, leaving him with a pounding headache and a bad taste in his mouth.

“Go home,” Mark said, pulling him up. “Get in the sauna. Take a really hot shower. And you’re taking tomorrow off.”

“What?” Alex shook his head, shrugging his shirt back on. “No, I can’t.”

“Yes. You can.” Alex whipped around. Dayo was standing there, waiting to usher Alex out of the gym. He slipped between the ropes of the ring, jumping down onto the floor and grabbing his bag. “Alex, you need to listen to Jackie.”

“Oh, God. She called you?”

“No, I called her. I saw TMZ this morning.”

Alex’s face turned red immediately. It was one thing for Jackie to be disappointed in him; it was another thing entirely for Dayo to be too. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I know,” Dayo said, nodding as he pulled open the heavy door of the gym. Alex squinted against the light, pushing his sunglasses on as quickly as he could. “Just make sure you do it now. We can’t have this hanging over our heads going into fight camp.”

“Okay.” Alex knew he was right. “I’ll take care of it.”

* * *

“I don’t want a trust fund baby,” Alex said to Jackie that night as they waited for their food to come out at Jose Andres’s restaurant. 

There was a long pause. “Have you ever dated a girl who was not a trust fund baby?”

That was a fair point, although Alex hadn’t actually dated anyone in a long time. “I guess not. But if this one is going to be around for a little while, then I need her to be chill. I can’t get through the fight if I’m worrying about who is living in my house.”

“Trust me,” Jackie said. “I have the perfect girl for you. If you weren’t such a mess of a human, I would have set you up with her a long time ago.”

“Oh, God. Is she a lawyer?”

“No,” Jackie said indignantly. “She’s a friend of mine from college. She’s still in PR, so she understands what we’re doing here.”

“And what is she getting out of this?”

“The pleasure of your company.” Jackie rolled her eyes. “She’s doing this as a favor to me.” The conversation came to a quick pause as their food came out, giant plates of meat set down in front of them. “And don’t even talk to me about trust fund babies when you’re sitting there with a hundred dollar steak,” Jackie said, not skipping a beat.

“What’s she like?” Alex asked, ignoring her and taking a bite of meat.

“She’s perfect,” Jackie repeated. “She’s kind of quiet. Runs a lot. She likes to write. And she’ll stay out of your way unless you need her.”

“When will I need her?”

“You know. You need to go out to dinner and the club. You need to be seen with her publicly. We talked about this.”

“It still seems ridiculous,” Alex said, washing his ribeye down with a little whiskey. “But I guess I have to trust you, right?”

Jackie pointed her fork at him. “Exactly.”

“What’s her name anyways?”

“Isabelle.””

“Alright.” He sighed heavily. “Let’s do it.” He paused, clinking his glass against Jackie’s as she raised hers for a cheers. “This is one of the craziest ideas you’ve ever had. You know that, right?”

“I know. Just pray that it works.”

Not so deep down, Alex knew that Jackie was right. He was twenty-seven years old. He couldn’t keep having these scandals pop up in his personal life every six months. He should have learned his lesson the first time, should have found a nice, normal, well-adjusted girl and settled down. But he wasn’t convinced that nice girls still existed, not based on the ones he was around most of the time. Besides, he himself was the farthest thing from nice or normal or well-adjusted that you could come up with. He had been in the spotlight since he was twenty-two years old, ever since the day he met Dana White and signed his name on that piece of paper that would change his life forever. He had no idea how to be normal.

“Don’t worry,” Jackie always told him. “That’s why you have me.”

Well. Thank God for that.

“When can I meet her?” Alex said.

“As soon as I can get the contract drawn up.”

“The contract? Jesus, Jackie. It’s not a business transaction.”

“Don’t worry about it, Alex. All you have to do is stand there, look pretty, and keep your mouth shut. And you’re only good at doing two of those things, so I need you to really focus.”

Alex smirked at her. “Which two?”

“Shut up, Alexander.” Jackie paused and took a sip of wine. “I’m being serious.” She leaned forward. “You know Dominic Nicholas has it out for you.” Alex rolled his eyes at the sound of his rival’s name. “You can’t afford any distractions before this fight. None.”

“I got it. If you think I’m gonna lose this fight, you’re out of your damn mind.”

“You’re out of your damn mind if you think that you can be fully concentrated on fight camp with this hanging over your head.”

Alex hated that Jackie was always right. He hated it even more that she knew it.

“Also,” she continued. “It absolutely is a business transaction. We are paying this girl to be your girlfriend for appearance’s sake. And you know what that means.”

“What does it mean, Jackie?” He tried to infuse as much exasperation into his voice as possible.

“You can’t sleep with her.”

“God, Jackie. I don’t sleep with everyone I meet.” 

All she did was raise her eyebrows at him. “I’m giving you this one warning. I’ll put it in the contract if I have to.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Alex knew full well that he and Jackie did not have a normal agent-client relationship. He also knew full well that neither of them were normal. Jackie felt like his older sister; she had ever since the day she had shown up in Des Moines. She didn’t work for a normal firm, like most other sports agents did. Alex was her only client, and that was by his request. He certainly paid her enough to get away with it. She also lived with him, which was far outside the normal professional relationship. It had started when they got to Vegas, both of them completely broke, in a tiny house in a bad part of the city. After Alex started making money, there had been no question that Jackie was coming with him.

As Mark put it, somebody needed to keep a leash on Alex, and no one was better at holding leashes than Jackie. 

* * *

After five years of living together, Alex should be used to Jackie busting into his room at ungodly hours of the morning, yelling about something or other. And yet, he didn’t think he would ever get used to it. It took him a little while to wake up and understand what the hell it was Jackie was screaming about this time.

“She’s on her way!” Jackie’s voice finally registered in his head, and he bolted upright, hitting the bottom to raise the shades. 

“Who is what now?”

“You heard me!” She ripped the blankets off him, and he covered himself quickly with the sheet. 

“Jackie, I am so not dressed right now.”

“What part of she’s on her way is difficult for you?”

“I’m not ready!”

“Get in the shower!” 

He got up, wrapping the sheet around his waist and shooing Jackie out of the room before turning on the rain shower, letting it heat up before he stepped inside. “Five minutes!” he heard Jackie shriek from outside his bedroom. Alex rested his forehead against the shower wall, letting the water rain down on his back, so hot it almost felt like it was burning his skin. He had such a bad feeling about this, had no idea what this girl was like or what the next two months would look like. But he knew he had no choice.

Above all, he needed to win this fight. Dominic Nicholas had been his number one rival for the past year and a half. The kid had come up out of nowhere, same as Alex had once upon a time. The difference was that Alex hadn’t sought out the middleweight reigning champion, hadn’t gone to the gym he worked out at and challenged him in front of everyone. Instead he had trained hard, worked his way up, and was scheduled for that fight fair and square.

That was not the road Dominic Nicholas had chosen to take.

Dana White had called Alex one day after Dominic had stomped into his gym. “I heard about what happened,” Dana said, his deep voice floating over the phone.

Alex sighed, sitting down on his living room couch and looking out over the strip. “So did everyone apparently.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to fight him.”

“That’s what I figured.” Alex could hear Dana flipping through pages on his end of the phone. “How about… New Year’s Eve of next year?”

“Perfect,” Alex said, leaning back, already plotting his takedown. 

“I’ll send the contract to Jackie.”

And now here they were, over a year later, gearing up for Fight Night. Alex had had three fights since them, and had won them all. He was undefeated in his professional career, and he wasn’t going to let some smart-ass kid from Texas ruin that for him. Dominic talked shit constantly on Snapchat and Twitter and Instagram, anywhere he could get some more exposure. Alex had ignored all of it, would have even if Jackie hadn’t forbid him from answering. Sometimes he typed out a response whenever a particularly egregious post appeared in his mentions, but he always deleted it. He knew Dominic wasn’t worth it.

A banging on the bathroom door interrupted his thoughts. “Alex!” Jackie hissed, barely audible over the sound of the water. “Get out!”

God, she was bossy.

He shut the water off and heard her footsteps quickly fading away, the door to his bedroom slamming shut behind her. He jumped out, wiping away the steam on the bathroom mirror and trying to arrange his hair into some semblance of normal. It took him a few minutes to decide what to wear, trying to figure out if he should dress up and finally deciding that that would be ridiculous, throwing on jeans and a No Love t-shirt.

“Alex!” he heard Jackie yelling from downstairs, and he rolled his eyes, barely restraining himself from yelling something rude back at her. He made his way down the stairs slowly, just to piss her off more, and he saw her sitting in the living room. There was a girl on the couch, her back to him. She had long hair, and she looked tiny, even smaller than Jackie.

“Finally!” Jackie said when she saw him, jumping up and running over the stairs to grab his arm, dragging him the rest of the way to the living room. He was going to have to have some words with her later about embarrassing him in front of guests. 

He was only more embarrassed when he finally made it into the living room, practically stumbling over his own feet. The girl stood up as he rounded the corner of the couch, Jackie finally letting go of his arm, and he could see that she was gorgeous. Long, dark hair. Eyes that looked almost black until he got up close to her, the sun shining in the high windows and bringing out the green. High cheekbones. Freckles. For one moment, he almost forgot how to speak, suddenly remembering where he was and what was going on when Jackie shoved a sharp elbow directly into his ribs.

“Hi,” he stuttered out, holding out a hand. “Alex.”

“Isabelle,” she said, her voice deeper, kind of raspy. “It’s nice to meet you.” She sat down primly, folding her hands in her lap. Alex dropped down onto the couch across from her, the glass coffee table separating them. Jackie sat down on the couch between them, the three of them almost forming a square, one side missing. 

“Well,” Jackie said, breaking the awkward silence. Alex couldn’t stop staring at Isabelle; he knew it was weird as he was doing it. “I don’t think we should talk about terms today. I think you two should just get to know each other, since you’ll be spending a lot of time together and all.”

Alex nodded. “Okay.” He didn’t know what to say. This was weird, he knew. He also knew he was only making it weirder by not speaking. 

“So it sounds like you need some help,” Isabelle said, her voice washing over Alex. She leaned forward, her hair falling over one shoulder. 

“I guess so.” He shot a look at Jackie, wondering how much Isabelle knew.

“Jackie told me what’s going on,” she said, answering his unasked question. Alex could feel his face turning bright red. “It’s okay.” Isabelle laughed. “I’m not judging you.”

“I would judge me,” he ground out. 

She frowned slightly. “We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” The question poured out of him before he could stop it, before he could think about the fact that maybe it was inappropriate. 

“You could say that,” she answered without skipping a beat. “Maybe I’m just doing Jackie a favor.” She winked in Jackie’s direction, and for a brief second, Alex wanted her to look at him like that.

“Is that so?”

She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Perhaps not. But don’t tell her that.”

Jackie rolled her eyes, glancing at Alex with a grin. “She’s perfect. Just like I told you.” Alex’s voice got stuck in his throat. He tried to clear it inconspicuously, failing miserably. 

“Do you want something to eat?” Alex asked, glancing at his phone. It was only eight o’clock. Damn Jackie and her early morning tendencies. 

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Isabelle said, looking around. “Do you cook?”

Jackie let out a laugh, and Alex shot her a look. “He has a chef,” Jackie said. “And so do you now.”

Isabelle let out a soft whistle. “This is going to take some getting used to, huh.” It wasn’t a question. Alex felt his ears burn red again.

“I don’t know if you ever get used to it,” he heard Jackie say as he get up, heading into the kitchen to see what Angelo had made for breakfast that morning. “He definitely hasn’t.”


	2. best way we survive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / who has to know when we live such fragile lives  
> / it's the best way we survive  
> / i go around a time or two  
> / just to waste my time with you  
> / tell me all that you've thrown away  
> / find out games you don't wanna play  
> / you are the only one that needs to know  
> dirty little secret by the all-american rejects

Alex knew that he had acted like an idiot in front of Isabelle. That point was not lost on him. And Jackie had made it clear the second Isabelle got on his elevator to leave.

“What the hell, Alex?” She turned to him, hand planted on her hip. “It’s like you’ve never seen a cute girl before in your life.”

Alex groaned, walking back over to the living room. He had gotten up when Isabelle had, walked her to the elevator and awkwardly shook her hand. Jackie smirked at him as he collapsed onto the couch, one arm slung over his eyes. “It was that bad?”

“Maybe she couldn’t tell,” Jackie said helpfully.

Alex played the last hour over in his mind at warp speed. He had gotten Isabelle breakfast, bringing it over to her on the couch and sitting down across from her again. Jackie kept the conversation going mostly, as it was clear to her that Alex was unable. He managed a couple of questions: how old she was (26), what she studied in school (journalism), how she got into PR (lucky break). 

“Well,” Jackie had said, shooting Alex a glare when Isabelle wasn’t looking. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow? We can go over the contract.”

Before Alex knew what was happening, Isabelle was standing up to leave, and he shot upright, ready to escort her out. He had waved at her as the elevator doors closed. “Oh God,” he said now, rolling over and burying his face in the pillow. “I waved.”

He could hear the smile in Jackie’s voice, even if he couldn’t see it. “You sure did. It was… something.”

“I have to go to the gym.” Alex pushed himself upright.

“Nope.” Jackie shook her head firmly. “You don’t. Besides, you’re not allowed. Dayo called me. He said you need a day off.”

“I can’t afford a day off.”

“You can and you will. I don’t care what you do, but you sure aren’t going to the gym.” She paused. “I take that back. You can’t knock anyone up either. Beyond that, I don’t care what you do.”

“I hate you.”

“I know,” she said cheerfully, wandering off to her office. Jackie never stopped working, even when it was Sunday and she was intentionally keeping Alex from doing his own work. 

He ended up wandering up to the pool, another giant selling point for this apartment. It was the very top level of his building, the third story of the three floors he owned of the giant high rise. It was covered by a glass dome, so that Alex could swim whenever he wanted, regardless of the weather. It was his favorite conditioning exercise, and he often ended up there in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, the stars glittering above him.

Alex swam laps for a while, trying to wipe Isabelle from his mind. It didn’t take long, his thoughts quickly consumed by Dominic Nicholas. Alex pictured him as he swam, until his muscles hurt and his lungs were screaming. He knew that Dominic didn’t spend his off days like this, and that was why Alex was going to win.

Once he got done, he hoisted himself up onto the side of the pool, drying his hands off on a towel and grabbing his phone. He snapped a picture of the pool, the glass dome rising above him and bathing the whole place in sunlight.

Off day, he posted on Instagram with a muscle emoji. As usual, he spent a few minutes scrolling through his notifications and his messages, seeing if anyone he knew was trying to get ahold of him. Within a few minutes, he had a ton of comments, a couple of his friends’ names popping out. Dayo had posted an eye-rolling emoji, and Alex smirked.

And then he saw Dominic’s comment: you’re gonna have a lot of days off once I beat you. It was Alex’s turn to roll his eyes, and he went to lock his phone when he saw the message come in.

Uh oh.

The reason Jackie got paid the big bucks was to handle stuff like this. Alex didn’t even get dressed, just grabbed his towel and pile of clothes and booked it down two flights of stairs to Jackie’s office. She looked up over her glasses at him as he barrelled in, narrowly missing knocking over her bar cart, the glass tumblers rattling as he flew past them and collapsed into the chair in front of her big mahogany desk. She had had that thing custom made, and it had taken seven movers to get it into Alex’s apartment.

“What part of ‘off day’ is hard for you to understand?” she asked him, glaring pointedly at his wet hair and swim trunks.

Alex didn’t answer; he just shoved his phone into Jackie’s hand, the message staring up at her. He could see it in the reflection of her glasses, her eyes moving quickly as she read it. When she was done, she set his phone down on her desk blotter, steepling her fingers under her chin and refusing to make eye contact with Alex.

It felt like forever until she looked up at him, clearing her throat. “Well. You knew she was going to contact you at some point.”

Alex grabbed his phone back, scanning the message again. I didn’t want to do this, it said. All you had to do was call me back. Now you’re gonna get what’s coming to you. Kat was her name. Honestly, that should have been his first red flag.

“Kat is a crazy girl name,” Jackie said, like she could hear what he was thinking. She probably could; if anyone was some sort of psychic, it was Jackie. “Honestly, Alex. You couldn’t just answer her phone call?”

He shrugged, leaning back in the chair, water dripping all over Jackie’s office floor. “I was busy.”

“Here’s my advice as your lawyer.” Jackie tapped a pen against her temple thoughtfully. “Block her on everything: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tinder, I don’t care what. Make sure she can’t see any of your social media. Block her number. Block her email. And if she somehow still gets ahold of you, forward it directly to me. Don’t say anything to her.”

Alex nodded, scrolling through his apps and quickly getting rid of her, screenshotting the Instagram message and emailing it to Jackie before blocking Kat on that too. “Do you have any advice as my friend?”

“Yeah, don’t beat yourself up about this,” Jackie said quickly, like she had been waiting for him to ask that question. “You can only control what you do, not what everyone else does.”

That had always been Alex’s biggest problem, something that Jackie knew better than anyone. Normally it wasn’t in the context of his personal life; usually it had something to do with his career: an opponent who was pissing him off, a fight that was canceled or moved, a difficult weight cut or an injury or a mental block. Jackie and Dayo and Mark and Nick repeated the mantra to him constantly, so much so that he had a “Control You” tattoo inked across his shoulder blades. 

“Probably an especially good thing for you to remember now with Dominic commenting on your Instagram like that,” Jackie continued.

“You saw that.”

“I have your notifications turned on. What kind of agent would I be if I didn’t? Also I figure it’s best to know which direction the hurricane is coming from.”

Alex smirked at her, throwing a pen across the desk at her and narrowly missing her head. She glared at him. “I’m gonna go shower again.”

“Please do, you smell like chlorine.” He was halfway out the door when Jackie yelled after him. “Family dinner at seven tonight, don’t forget!” Like they hadn’t had family dinner at seven o’clock every Sunday since they moved to Las Vegas. Sure, it had gotten bigger over the years as they added in Dayo and Mark and Nick, hired a chef, and made it an open invitation to everyone who worked out at Alex’s gym, but the sentiment had never changed.

“I know,” he called back at her, throwing another pen over his shoulder as he turned the corner and headed back up the stairs to his bedroom.

Alex paused on the way up, looking out at the strip, wondering for a moment if Isabelle was down there, if she was thinking about him too. It only took a few seconds for him to realize how ridiculous he was being. He didn’t know this girl from Adam. She could be crazy - if she was Jackie’s friend, she had to be at least a little bit. And he still didn’t understand what she could be getting out of this. No one who was completely sane would agree to what she was about to do.

He knew he needed to keep his distance. He had been burned in the past, and there was no way he would willingly go through that again. As long as he treated it like a business relationship, he would be alright. 

* * *

The guys were right on time for dinner; Jackie had trained them well over the years. She was still in her office at seven o’clock, Dayo clapping Alex on the back before heading in to join her, the heavy wood door closing shut behind him.

Immediately, Mark and Nick pounced on Alex, dragging him from the elevator lobby into the kitchen where Angelo was finishing up the food. “What the hell is going on?” Mark hissed at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“We were at the gym all morning and Dayo got a call from Jackie and it sounded like she was yelling about something, and he went into the office and shut the door and he was in there talking to her for… I don’t know, what would you say, Nick?”

“An hour maybe.”

“Yeah, an hour. What the hell, Alex?”

Alex frowned at them. “How come you two are allowed to be at the gym and I’m not?”

Nick punched him in the arm. “That is so not the point right now. Tell us what’s going on.”

So Alex filled them in on everything: Jackie’s plan to counteract the crazy, meeting Isabelle, the message from Kat. Once he was finished, they were silent, just staring at him with their mouths agape. Alex had never heard the two of them that quiet, the only sounds coming from the oven door shutting behind them and the sink turning on and off. 

“Wait…” Mark held his hand up, eyebrows knit together. “So you’re going to be dating this girl.”

“Fake dating.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it.”

Alex sighed. “We haven’t figured everything out yet, but she’s going to live here, I think, and we’ll go out sometimes when we need to be papped together. That way, Kat will know that I’m not available and the press will get off my back.” Even in the last eight hours, more articles kept popping up, from E! Online and Perez Hilton and Radar and even the Daily Mail. Alex couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why this was such an interesting story to everyone, especially since it was unsubstantiated. 

“But you’re not actually dating.”

“No.”

“So… why is she doing this?” Nick was frowning.

“Beats me.” Alex shrugged. “I guess I’ll figure that out soon. She’s coming over tomorrow so we can go over the contract.”

“Count on Jackie to cover all your bases.”

“Can we come tomorrow?”

“What?” Alex stared at Mark. “No! Are you crazy?”

“Clearly,” Nick snickered. “But for real though. When can we meet her?”

Alex was just about to reel off a scathing remark about how the two of them would scare her away immediately and under no circumstances were they ever going to meet her before Fight Night unless it was absolutely necessary when the door to the office flew open, Dayo and Jackie emerging. 

“It smells great, Angelo,” Jackie said, ignoring the three of them and walking over to the stove to smell whatever it was that was bubbling away on the range top. 

“You’re just in time,” he answered, pulling the pot off the stove and setting it on a hot pad on the counter. Alex made his way over to the giant glass dining room table, the sky already dark around them. 

It only took a few minutes for Mark to bring up Dominic’s Instagram comment, waiting until they had all been served before diving right in. “He’s a little bitch,” Mark said. “Don’t even worry about it.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “I’m not worried about it.” He took a big spoonful of chili, almost dropping it directly onto his lap but saving it at the last moment. “He’s spending all this time out there talking shit on my social media, and that’s time he’s not spending training.”

Dayo nodded. “Good. I don’t want you to interact with him at all. It makes us look bad, and it makes you look weak.” 

“He’s a kid.” Mark was shoving saltines into his mouth, spraying the table with crumbs as he spoke. “Alex is going to beat the shit out of him.”

“We can’t be overconfident. That’s how we lose.”

“Hey Jackie,” Nick spoke up casually, like he had just remembered what he was going to say. “When can we meet Isabelle?”

Alex immediately threw his spoon across the table, chili flying everywhere. “Hey!” Jackie screeched, pushing back from the table and instinctively checking her crisp white shirt for stains. “We don’t throw silverware!” Alex shot her a look. “And that’s up to Alex, I suppose.” She paused. “Although… you all are going to meet her during Fight Week, so you might as well do it beforehand, get some of the awkwardness out of the way…” She trailed off when she saw Alex glaring at her. “What? You know I’m right.”

“She is,” Mark said, ignoring Alex’s gaze completely. 

“Oh, shut up!” 

Dinner quickly devolved from there, as it usually did. Alex often felt like they were a little family, Jackie and Dayo in charge of the three of them, keeping them from fighting or getting a little too ridiculous. It had been like this for a long time, and Alex wasn’t sure how well he would handle a big change. One of the big reasons he hadn’t dated anyone since he moved out here was because he didn’t know how they would react to this weird little unit he was a part of. Whoever it was would have to be able to keep up with everyone, and he had sure never met someone who was up to the task.

* * *

The next time Isabelle came around, Alex was ready for her. He didn’t want to be caught off guard and act like a bumbling fool like he had yesterday. He got up early, went to train, and even got an extra lift in before he came home and showered. 

“Aww, look at you,” Jackie said, leaning against the doorframe of his bathroom as he did his hair. “You like this girl.”

“I like her a normal amount for someone I just met and am going into business with,” Alex said, not daring to meet Jackie’s eyes in the mirror because he knew that if he did he would turn bright red and she would never let him live it down. Especially not after the disaster that was yesterday. 

“Do you want to go over some stuff before she gets here?”

“Like what?”

“Like money stuff.”

Alex ran his fingers through his hair one more time before giving up and washing his hands. “I don’t think so,” he said, pausing as he dried his hands. “I know this is basically a business transaction and all but… I don’t know. The money stuff is weird to me. If you put some numbers in, I trust you.”

“Okay.” Jackie had the file folder tucked under her arm. “You don’t need to feel weird about this. People do it all the time.”

“Oh, really.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well, I don’t know about all the time. But more than you think.”

“It feels… wrong.” Alex had been struggling back and forth with the idea that he was going to pay Isabelle. He himself wasn’t entirely sure it was legal, but if Jackie was making contracts, then it had to be. He kept reminding himself that he wasn’t paying her for a relationship, sexual or otherwise, but for appearances, the same way he got paid for speaking engagements and press opportunities. The only difference was she was going to be living with him.

“That’s just to make it easier,” Jackie had told him yesterday when he brought up his concerns. “Plus if she’s living here, there’s no way the press can sniff around her apartment and find anything out about her. This place is a fortress. You need to relax. This isn’t a Pretty Woman situation.”

Alex knew she was right. As always.

He pushed those thoughts from his brain now, pushing up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and following Jackie out into the kitchen. Jackie set her folder down on the dining room table, all chili stains quickly cleaned up, the glass spotless again.

Alex’s housekeeper Ava brought over a plate of cookies and some coffee, setting them down on the table and backing away quickly, shooting Alex a smile as she did. God, was he that obviously nervous? He sat down at the head of the table, quickly standing up again and switching seats when he realized that was too intimidating. It didn’t matter anyways because as soon as he heard the ding of the elevator, he jumped up.

Isabelle looked even better than she had the day before, dressed in a navy blue suit, her hair up in a bun. Alex had given himself a major pep talk at the gym that morning, telling himself to not be such an idiot this time and to act like a normal person. It was taking a very conscious effort now to look her in the eye, shake her hand, and pull out her chair for her to sit down at the table. Thankfully Jackie was the one to pour her a cup of coffee because Alex was sure that he would spill all over the table if he tried to do that.

“Let’s get down to it,” Jackie said, all business as she opened her folder and slid one stapled packet of paper to Alex and another to Isabelle. She was seated at the head of the table in the spot Alex had quickly vacated, Alex on one side of her and Isabelle on the other, facing each other. Alex cleared his throat as he quickly glanced over the contract, words like “salary” and “exclusive” and “appearances” jumping out at him.

He glanced up, watching Isabelle read. Her face was expressionless, and he couldn’t figure out what on earth she was thinking. Was she regretting this? As weird as he thought it was and as much as Jackie had had to convince him, he hoped she wasn’t.

“Your contract will run from today, November third until January first of next year, 2019. Fight Night is set for December thirty-first of this year, and your presence will be required at the event here in Las Vegas, as well as all of the events in the week preceding, including press day and weigh ins.”

Alex chanced a glance up at Isabelle. She was nodding, following along with her pen. So far, so good.

“The week before Fight Night, Alex will be followed around by a camera crew for the show, UFC Embedded. This is part of his contract and, as such, you will you need to be there also when appropriate.”

Alex hated it when Jackie talked a lawyer. It freaked him out. Isabelle was still nodding.

“You will live here at Alex’s apartment-”

Isabelle cut Jackie off, and Alex jerked up, ice running through his veins. “Wait, what? I can’t just get out of my lease.” She directed the question at Alex, even though it was Jackie who had been speaking the whole time.

He nodded. “Uh, Jackie, take care of it.”

“Done.” Jackie typed a quick note on her laptop, shoving her pen in between her teeth as she did so. “You can move in today.”

Isabelle cocked her head to the left, staring at Alex through slightly narrowed eyes, not angry, not disgusted, just curious. God, this was embarrassing. He stared back at her, waiting for her to say something. “Okay,” she said finally. “We can continue.”

“As far as salary…” Jackie flipped a page. Alex quickly scanned down the second page of the contract, looking for the numbers. Yep, that seemed fair. “Alex will be paying you ten thousand dollars a week.”

All of a sudden, there was coffee all over the table. Alex grabbed his contract instinctively, pulling it out of the way. “Oh my God,” Isabelle said, grabbing a napkin and quickly wiping at the drops in front of her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jackie said smoothly, trying (and failing) to hide a laugh.

“But ten thousand? Jackie, are you crazy?”

“Is that not enough?” Alex asked frantically. He would pull out his checkbook right now if it meant he could keep this girl around a little longer. “I can do more; that won’t be a problem. Just tell me how much.”

Isabelle smiled at him, the first real smile he thought he had gotten out of her. “Ten thousand is more than enough, you loon.”

He fell silent, not wanting to open his mouth again in fear that he would say something even stupider. “This is why you need an attorney, Alex,” Jackie said, shooting a look at Isabelle conspiratorially. “You suck at negotiating.”

“Just keep going.”

“In addition to your weekly salary,” Jackie said, continuing on, “Alex will pay for all groceries, dinners, transportation needs, hair and makeup, wardrobe, and miscellaneous expenses.”

“Well, that’s only fair.” Isabelle winked at him and he felt like his heart might stop. 

“You will be required to go to at least two outings a week outside of the apartment where you will be papped. You will attend fight camp at least once. You will be seated ringside at the fight with myself and Alex’s siblings. You have the right to request any additions or amendments to this contract as long as they are done in writing. Am I missing anything?”

“Uh, yeah,” Isabelle said, flipping a page. “What in the hell is fight camp?”

It had been so long since Alex had spent time with someone who wasn’t directly involved in the MMA world that at first he didn’t even understand the question. He just stared at Jackie, once again, like an idiot, waiting for her to bail him out. Except she didn’t.

“Alex? You want to take this one?”

“Uh, yeah. Fight camp.” He swallowed. “It runs for three weeks before the fight, and it’s basically a really intense training camp. During the last week before the fight, I… I mean, we stay at the MGM Grand, which is right down the street from the arena where the fight is.”

“Okay.” Isabelle looked like she was thinking things through. “And what is…” She flipped a page back in her contract. “UFC Embedded?”

UFC Embedded was one of Alex’s most stressful parts of Fight Week. For the last week before the fight, a camera crew followed him around, capturing everything: training, appointments at the chiropractors, packing, eating, relaxing, and even the dreaded weight cut. They would be at the press day, the unofficial weigh in, and the official weigh in, and the whole thing would be posted day by day on UFC’s YouTube account. It was hard enough to get ready for a fight, in Alex’s opinion, much less when the whole process was being broadcast to the world. 

“It’s just this video series thing,” he explained lamely. “It’s not that big a deal, you’ll just be on camera for… five days or so.” He mumbled the last part, certain it would be a dealbreaker.

“Oh okay.” Isabelle was silent for a few minutes, reading. Alex and Jackie had a silent conversation, Jackie not needing any words to be able to tell Alex to chill the hell out. As he sat there, watching Isabelle’s eyes flick over the pages, he got more and more stressed, feeling like his heart was about to burst out of his chest, like his skin was too tight around him. Finally she looked up.

“Okay.” She nodded once. “You got a pen, Jackie?”

“Wait, what?” Alex sat up straight. “That’s it? You’re cool with everything?”

“Yeah.” It felt like she was staring right through him, right at his soul. “I’m cool with everything.”

Jackie grinned, sliding what Alex knew to be a five hundred dollar pen over to Isabelle, who signed her name with a flourish. Jackie pushed the contract over to Alex, whose scribble was much less neat than Isabelle’s. And just like that, Alex had a girlfriend.


	3. this one's gonna own me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / somebody told me  
> / if i'm not careful, well, this one's gonna roll me  
> / i got my hands full and this one's gonna own me and control me  
> / i'm so mystified  
> she sets the city on fire by gavin degraw

It only took a couple of hours for Isabelle to really make herself at home. After they finished up with all of Jackie’s formalities, she ordered Alex to show Isabelle the apartment, making herself scarce in her office. “Okay,” Alex said, standing up and rolling out his bad shoulder. “This is the kitchen and the dining room.” Duh, Alex. 

“Jackie said last night that you have a chef.”

“Yeah, his name is Angelo. He’s here four days a week, but he’ll come whenever you call him. Jackie can give you all the numbers that you’ll need.”

Isabelle opened the giant refrigerator, packed full of food, meticulously labeled by Angelo with the contents and the date. “It’s a lot of chicken.”

“Yeah, I’m on a really strict diet. It only gets weirder when I have to do a weight cut, so don’t feel like you have to eat what I’m eating. He’ll make you whatever you want.”

“Do you ever get tired of eating rabbit food?” She shut the fridge.

Alex laughed, her question taking him by surprise. “All the time. You have no idea what I would do for a Cinnabon.”

“But it’s worth it though, right?”

“If I’m winning.”

“Do you usually win?”

Alex thought back to his professional career, sixteen wins and zero losses. “Yeah.” He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “I win.”

“Well clearly.” Isabelle turned around, gesturing at the windows and the living room. “You have the most gorgeous apartment I’ve ever seen.”

Alex’s ears turned so red it was almost like she had called him gorgeous. “Oh, thanks. Yeah, I really like it. Jackie found it though.”

“She is a force of nature.”

“She is at that.”

Alex pulled open some cabinet doors, showing her where the plates and silverware and coffee mugs were. It felt weird to have someone in his kitchen who he barely knew. He had spent so much time over the last five years with the same four people that this was almost an entirely new experience. Even when he had girls over, they were mainly just in the bedroom and then out the door. He didn’t like having them in the other spaces; those were his and he was never good at sharing, as Jackie reminded him constantly. 

But this was her house now too. And she was nothing like the girls he picked up in clubs. 

He showed her the rest of the first floor: Jackie’s office, the giant sound system in the living room (“You’re going to need to write me an instruction manual on how to turn this on because I’ve never seen so many buttons in my life.” Alex practically bit his tongue off trying not to make a joke about her having trouble turning something on.), the alarm system, the pantry (“This is bigger than my entire apartment. No lie.”), and the front closet, where there was a safe with all of the keys to all of his cars.

“You can have whichever you want,” he said, starting to shut the door behind him. Isabelle grabbed his arm as he turned away, still standing in the closet. 

“Um. What?”

“Just pick one,” Alex shrugged. “They definitely don’t get driven enough.”

He realized very suddenly that they were standing really close inside Alex’s closet. She was still holding his arm, and his skin felt like it was burning where she was touching him. She was just looking up at him. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. What do I need five cars for?”

“Five cars, Alex? Jesus Christ.”

“I know. It’s excessive.”

She glanced back at the safe one more time before pushing him out of the closet, shutting the door behind them. 

“Do you want to go to your room?” he asked awkwardly, shifting back and forth. He knew he looked nervous.

“You’re the boss,” Isabelle said, kicking her heels off and leaving them by the front door. “Let’s go.”

They went upstairs, Isabelle pausing on the stairs to look out at the strip. “Wow,” she said. “It’s really something, isn’t it? Makes you really realize how… small you are.” He stood there, looking at her looking at the world, and he thought for a moment that he could do this forever. “Do you get lonely?”

Alex was quickly realizing that she wasn’t afraid to ask him about himself, even questions that he was afraid to ask himself. It must have been the journalism student in her, coming out in waves even though she wasn’t a journalist. “I… uh…” He stuttered, not sure what to say. “I guess so. But Jackie’s always here so…”

“That’s true.” She took a couple more seconds, pressing her palm against the window before turning around and following Alex up the rest of the stairs. 

Alex pointed out doors as they walked down the long marble hallway: the library, the theater where he mostly just watched film of his opponents, his office, and the two guest bedrooms. “You can have whichever one,” he said. “They both have their own bathrooms.” 

“Oh, definitely this one,” Isabelle said, as they were standing in the second one. “Look at that view.” It was on the same side as his bedroom, with a gorgeous view of the Bellagio and the fountains and the gardens and the lights. A lot of people called Vegas a plastic town, and before he got here, Alex might have thought that too. But when he sat and looked out at it, he was pretty positive he would never be able to leave.

“Where’s your room?” Isabelle asked him.

“It’s the one next door,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Can I see it?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing special, but go ahead.” She was already out the door, having bolted the second he said it was okay. 

“Do you even live here?” he heard her call.

“Yeah, it’s a little bare.” Alex shut the light off in the guest room - Isabelle’s room; he would have to get used to that - and took the few steps to his room, standing in the doorway and watching her. She was in the middle of his room, turning around. “I don’t like a lot of clutter.”

“You don’t like a lot of anything,” she said. “Just wait until you see how much stuff I’ve got.”

He had a hard time sleeping as it was - he needed complete silence and total darkness. Jackie had had the blackout shades installed before he even moved in, well aware of his sleeping habits. The only things in the room were his bed, a couple of chairs, the nightstands, and the smooth marble table at the end of the bed.

“You don’t even have a TV in here!”

She looked so offended he almost laughed, going over to the nightstand. “I’m not that crazy.” He pushed a button, the TV appearing from the table at the end of the bed.

“Oh my God,” Isabelle said. “That’s so extra.”

He laughed. “You could say that.”

“So is this it?” Isabelle asked. “The whole apartment?”

“No way. We haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.”

Isabelle had the same visceral reaction the pool that Alex had had when Jackie showed it to him for the first time. “This is... “ She couldn’t even finish her sentence, staring up, mouth open, at the dome above them. “This is incredible.” 

“Do you swim?”

“No, but I’ll start.” He felt like he was staring at her too intently, but there was just something about her, about the way she reacted to things, about the way that she was full of emotion and wasn’t afraid to hide it. 

“There’s a hot tub over there.” Alex pointed over to the corner where the hot tub was bubbling away. “Sauna over there. Gym back there.” He paused, trying to remember if he was missing anything. “And I think that’s it.”

Alex left her alone after that to settle in. Her best friend, Jack, was going to help her move her stuff, a job that Alex couldn’t imagine taking more than a couple of hours and car trips.

He was wrong.

Isabelle had more stuff than anyone he had ever seen before in his entire twenty-seven years of life. She left for a few hours, going back to her apartment to pick up her boxes. Alex was expecting maybe four or five, some clothes, a couple of books. Instead, she had overflowing clothes racks, boxes of books, makeup spilling out of tubs and bags. He went to the gym for a while, and when he came back, it looked like the apartment had thrown up.

“Do you… need help?” he asked, standing awkwardly at the door to her room. 

“No, I’m good.” She was seated in the middle of the floor, surrounded by books. “I’m just trying to alphabetize these.”

“I do know my letters, you know.”

“Oh, do you?” She smirked up at him, patting the ground next to her. “Then come here.”

He made his way into the room carefully, picking his way through clothes, DVDs, shoes, and stacks of books. The girl had more books than he thought he had ever seen in his life. Alex sank down next to her, grabbing a stack and putting it on his lap. “I can get you more bookshelves if you need.”

“I may take you up on that. My system of shoving them under the bed and trying to dig them out at random hasn’t been working out for me.”

“You live by yourself?”

“For a few years now. My two best friends, Jack and Leven, they live in the same building as me so at least I have someone around all the time if I need it. But I’ve been on my own for a little while.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“Yeah.” She smiled at him, taking a book off the top of his stack. “Not anymore.” 

They ended up moving all of her books to the library, Alex brushing dust off the empty shelves hurriedly with his t-shirt before she saw how little he really used this room. He was sure it was obvious - most of the floor to ceiling shelves were completely bare, save for a couple of autobiographies: Ronda Rousey, Cody Garbrandt, Georges St-Pierre. He didn’t read much. 

“This place is incredible,” Isabelle said, pushing the rolling ladder in awe. 

“It’s all yours.” He could picture her, curled up on the window seat with a book and a cup of coffee, and then immediately shook the image out of his head. 

“Isabelle?” Alex heard a male voice call from downstairs, followed closely by a female one.

“Where the hell are you? This place is giant!”

Isabelle jumped the last few feet off the ladder, skipping a couple of steps. “Come on,” she said to Alex, bounding towards the door. “I want you to meet my friends.”

Alex followed her down the stairs. He was a big guy, but it seemed like he could barely keep up with her. She was always in motion; that was the first thing he was really starting to notice about her. He was also realizing that the real Isabelle was different from the girl he met yesterday, the girl who had showed up at the apartment this morning. She wasn’t cautious or shy, like he would have originally guessed based on her first impression. Instead, she was the exact opposite of that, full of life and color and noise. This was going to be an experience, he could already tell.

* * *

“So how do you think it’s going so far?” Jackie asked Alex. She had come up to the pool to visit him, something she didn’t normally do. She said it was too humid up there, which was a valid point if you weren’t going to get in the water and were extra anal retentive about your hair looked all the damn time. She had walked in as Alex was finishing up his mile swim, immediately wrinkling her nose as the warm, wet air hit her. 

He pulled his goggles off, intentionally ruffling his hair in order to spray water all over her. “It’s been a week, Jackie. I’m not psychic.”

“Yeah, but you’re not an idiot.” He rested his arms on the side of the pool, staring up at her. “Do you like her?”

Alex felt his face flush. “Yeah, she’s great.”

“I told you so.” Jackie smiled smugly, and he flicked water at her. “Alexander, stop! I’m wearing a white shirt!”

“So… now what?”

Jackie pulled out her phone, opening up Alex’s schedule. “You need to go to dinner with her. The sooner the better.”

“How soon?”

“Can you do tomorrow?” Alex knew Jackie only asked to be polite; she had his entire schedule practically memorized.

“Tomorrow is fine.” His mind immediately raced forward a few days, knowing that the first time they went out together would make this all seem real.

“Great.” Jackie typed away furiously. “I’ll make a reservation at Spago.” She didn’t even pause, rolling right ahead to the next thing. “You need to make sure you put her on your social media. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, all of it. That way both the press and Kat know what’s going on.”

“Let’s not say her name in this house anymore.”

“You can’t pretend it’s not happening, Alex. But don’t worry. Having Isabelle around will take care of it.”

Having Isabelle around had already changed Alex’s life. He was starting to see things split into two sections: Before Isabelle and After Isabelle. Before Isabelle, it was him and Jackie, alone in the giant apartment with a couple of staff. Both of them worked so much that they would sometimes go days without seeing each other, and when they were home, Jackie was usually in her office. Before Isabelle, everything was black and white and gray, except for the light coming in through the windows in the morning. Before Isabelle, the house was quiet.

After Isabelle, Alex thought, the house felt like sunshine. There was color everywhere, from a sweater she left draped over the back of a dining room chair or the big knit blanket she put on the couch or the flowers she stuffed in a vase that she had scrounged up from somewhere in the kitchen. After Isabelle, there was noise. She always had the TV on or the radio blasting or people over.

Alex had met her two friends the day she moved in, and he had liked them immediately. It had been so long since he had had someone in his life who was just a friend, not a manager or a coach or a teammate. Leven immediately made herself at home in Alex’s life, following Isabelle’s lead. She was a taller, blonder, even louder version of Isabelle, and most days Alex came home from the gym to find the two girls in the kitchen with Angelo, talking loudly at each other and making Angelo smile as he cooked. Even Jackie came out of her office more, settling herself down to work at the kitchen counter or the dining room table, although Alex was wondering if that had something to do with Jack.

Jack was Isabelle’s best friend. They grew up together, went to college together, moved to Vegas together. He was a bartender who worked crazy hours, often crashing on Alex’s couch during the day when he came over to see Isabelle. Alex had a feeling there had been something between Jack and Jackie, but every time he brought it up she rolled her eyes at him and walked away.

It had only been a week since she moved in, but it had been a great one. He wasn’t coming home to an empty house anymore, and he didn’t realize how badly he had wanted that until he had it.

Alex held up a hand to Jackie. “Come on, help me out.”

“No way.” She took a step back. “I’m not falling for this again.”

“Jackie, my shoulder hurts!”

“You can’t use that as an excuse to throw me in the pool again.”

“That was an accident. I said I was sorry a million times.”

“You’re a liar, Alexander.” She danced just out of his reach as he hoisted himself out of the pool, water streaming off him and onto the tile. 

“Jackie, come here.” He chased after her, doing his best not to slip on the floor, finally grabbing her when he caught up to her, wrapping his arms around her and shaking his head in her face, water flying everywhere. She shrieked, pushing him away.

“You’re so gonna regret this, Alex!”

He finally released her, convinced that he had done his job and completely ruined her outfit. “I’m gonna go get in the sauna.” He strolled away from her nonchalantly.

“You do that!” she yelled after him, wringing out her shirt.

He went downstairs when he was finished about twenty-five minutes later, planning on grabbing a water from the fridge, when he heard Jackie and Isabelle talking in the kitchen. As he was about to turn the corner, he heard Isabelle say his name, and he immediately stopped, pressing his back up to the wall and listening.

“He’s great,” he heard Isabelle say, her voice low. “Everything’s great. It’s just really different, you know?”

“Not your studio apartment anymore, huh?”

“Definitely not.” There was a pause, ice clinking into a cup. “What’s his deal anyway?”

Jackie sighed, the same sigh she always gave when Alex did something ridiculous. “It’s not his fault. He just picks crazy women.”

“I guess so. I saw that article in the Sun the other day.” Alex winced, the article popping up in his brain as clear as if it had been in front of him. That had been a new one, some unnamed source saying that they saw Alex and Kat leave the club together that night, that they had been seen making out in the corner and it was no surprise to anyone when Kat got in a car with him. None of it meant anything, but all of it was true, and only added to the tornado of bullshit swirling around him.

“Yeah, well…” Jackie sighed again. “This one just isn’t going away.”

“This one? There’s been others?”

“A couple. They’ve never been this persistent though.”

“Wow.” Another pause. “He seems relatively… well-adjusted. Wasn’t he super young when he started?”

“He was twenty-two when he moved here.” God, it was weird to hear other people talk about him like this. He was used to being in control of his own story. “That’s why he has me.”

Isabelle laughed. “You are the best at being the boss everyone. I sure wouldn’t be here without you.”

In all honesty, it was weird that Alex hadn’t met Isabelle before she showed up in his house to be his fake girlfriend. She was one of Jackie’s closest friends, and now that he thought back, he could remember all of the times Jackie brought her up in conversation. But she had only recently moved to Las Vegas in the last couple of years, something to do with an ex-boyfriend kicking her out, and Alex’s schedule had kept Jackie insanely busy. He was glad she was around; he could see how happy it made Jackie to have her friend back.

He was lost in thought, had entirely forgotten about getting a drink, when Jackie came barrelling around the corner, smacking right into his chest. “Alex!” she hissed, glancing behind her to make sure Isabelle was still in the kitchen. “Are you eavesdropping?”

“It’s my house,” he hissed back. “You can’t eavesdrop in your own house.”

“Who came up with that stupid rule?”

“The person who pays the mortgage gets to come up with the house rules.”

“Technically… I pay the mortgage.” She was right. Alex hadn’t paid a bill in five years. Jackie had a giant spreadsheet on her computer and authorization to sign all of his checks, making his life that much easier. 

“You got me there.”

He was about two seconds away from starting a slap fight with Jackie when Isabelle walked around the corner. “Oh, hey!” Was it just him or did her face brighten when she saw him? “Did you just get done?”

“Uh, yeah.” Alex rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly very aware that he didn’t have a shirt on. 

“Good workout?”

“Not the worst.”

Since Isabelle had moved in, Alex had apparently completely forgotten how to talk to women, and he wondered if he would ever get used to this feeling.

“Good!” She skipped away, headed up to her room. 

Alex had been trying to leave her alone, give her as much space as possible to settle in. He kept telling himself that it was because this whole thing was new and weird and unprecedented for him, but the truth was he didn’t know how to act around her. He was constantly worried he was going to do something dumb, say the wrong thing. All he could think about was that this girl he barely knew was privy to the fact that he was essentially being blackmailed. 

Embarrassing, to say the least. 

So it took him completely off guard when he was sitting in bed that night, going over his training plan for the next few weeks and she wandered into his room, sitting down on the chair by the window. “Whatcha doing?” 

He whipped off his glasses, shoving them under his pillow. It wasn’t as smooth as he had been hoping. “Just going over my schedule.”

“Exciting.” She made a face, looking out his window. He didn’t know what to say, just stared at her. “Can I sit in here with you? It just… feels a little lonely, you know?”

He knew. “Yeah, absolutely. We can watch TV or something.”

Isabelle grabbed the pillow from the other chair, throwing it at him. “Are you sure that won’t disturb your beauty sleep?”

“Shut up.” The words slipped out before he could stop them and she laughed as he grabbed the remote, pushing the button to make the TV appear. “What do you watch?”

“Oh, anything,” she said breezily and he frowned at her, thumb hovering over the menu button. “What?”

“That’s not true. You have to have a preference for something.”

“Fine. If you must know, I have a messy relationship with reality television.”

“Oh, you’re one of those.” Alex certainly wasn’t going to tell her that he used to keep Thursday nights open just so he could watch Jersey Shore. He clicked through Hulu before tossing the remote to Isabelle. Instead of staying on the chair as he anticipated, she climbed up onto his bed like it was nothing, eyes glued on the television screen as she scrolled through her options, and Alex was once again aware that he was half naked. He quickly gathered up all of his papers, throwing them into a pile on the floor next to him, and clapped to turn off the overhead light, throwing the room into darkness.

“You can’t see the TV from that chair, did you know that?” she asked offhandedly, like his heart wasn’t about to pound out of his chest. 

“Why would you need to see it from the chair when there’s a bed right here?” 

“God, you’ve been alone for way too long.” Yeah, he wasn’t going to argue with that. “You’ve changed these sheets since the last girl was in here, right?”

Thank God it was dark in here so she couldn’t see the deep flush that worked its way up from his neck. “I haven’t, but I’m sure the housekeeper has.”

“Oh, of course, the housekeeper.” Isabelle rolled her eyes, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow. She was a very touchy person, always grabbing his arm or poking him, his skin turning hot under her hand every time. “Alex?”

“Yeah.”

“Why is Jersey Shore: Family Vacation in your purchased TV shows?” Well, there went his cover.

He made a grab for the remote, but was way too slow for her, and she held it out of his reach, choosing the first episode. 

“This is unfair,” he complained. “You know a shitload of stuff about me and I know next to nothing about you.”

She lowered the volume, turning towards him and pulling her knees up to her chest. “What do I know about you?”

“You know. The thing with… the girl.”

“Everyone knows about that, Alex.”

True. “Well, not everyone knows that it’s not actually real.” Jackie had finally, after what felt like a million years, gotten confirmation that Kat was not actually pregnant. She had refused to settle for a urine test, instead telling Kat’s attorney that they would only accept a blood test as proper documentation, threatening to sue for defamation if Kat didn’t comply. She did, of course; no one was willing to mess with Jackie.

“Okay, well. You live in my house. You’ve been in my bedroom.”

Isabelle mumbled something like “so have half of the women in this city,” but Alex barrelled on.

“You’ve been to family dinner, for Christ’s sake.”

Alex had tried to convince Jackie to cancel family dinner for last night, but she had flatly refused. “I know why you want that, Alex. Your friends have to meet her eventually. Like I said before, the sooner the better, since they’ll be with her during Fight Week while you’re busy.”

He pouted about it for the rest of the day, still not over it when Mark and Nick burst into his apartment, ignoring him completely and going straight for Isabelle. He realized very quickly that he shouldn’t have been concerned about whether or not she would fit in; they loved her immediately. Alex spent most of the dinner talking to Dayo, eyeing Nick at the end of the table, fully prepared to launch another spoon at him. But his friends were on their best behavior, making Isabelle feel right at home. 

“Okay,” Isabelle asked. “What do you want to know?”

Well, shit. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Where’d you grow up?”

“Wisconsin.”

“You’re kidding me. I’m from Iowa.”

“I know,” she said proudly. “I finally googled you.”

“So you stalked me.”

“You could say that. Although I guess that only reinforces your point that I know more about you than you know about me.”

“Exactly.” He glanced at the television, saw Snooki walking into their Miami house. “Where in Wisconsin?”

“LaCrosse.”

“Siblings?”

“One. A sister. Madeline. She lives in Paris, and I don’t get to see her that much anymore which sucks.”

“And you graduated from USC?”

“About three years ago now. Jackie was my freshman mentor.”

“How come to moved to Vegas?”

Isabelle sighed loudly. “Well.” She cleared her throat a couple of times. “I was dating this guy basically all through college. We got a place together in LA right after graduation. I had started working at this little beach newspaper and he was gonna try to get into the entertainment business. And then he broke up with me. Really suddenly. It was about a year after we moved in together, and he brought some other girl into our house.”

Alex didn’t know what to say, just stayed silent and waited for her to continue. “Jackie was great. She came down for about a week, got me a hotel room, came with me to get all my stuff. And then Jack and Leven and I moved here together. We figured we could use a fresh start.”

Alex remembered it vaguely, Jackie disappearing for a week, sending Alex a quick text message that just said family emergency, be back in a week. He hadn’t realized until now that family meant Isabelle. 

“Are you bummed out that you’re gonna be taking some time off of work?”

Isabelle laughed. “Absolutely not. I haven’t had a vacation in two years, since I started at the firm.” While Jackie had her own one-woman show, Isabelle worked for the biggest PR firm in Las Vegas, one of the biggest on the West Coast. “Besides, PR isn’t ever what I wanted to do. It’s not what I grew up dreaming about, you know?”

Alex couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to be a fighter. He started in wrestling, which had morphed into judo, and from there quickly became mixed martial arts. “What did you grow up dreaming about then?”

“Writing,” she said quickly, no hesitation. “It’s why I went into journalism, but that’s such a hard field to get started in. You know they say print media is dying.”

“I’ve heard that, but it’s easy to forget when you’ve got paparazzi following you everywhere so they can print the crazy details of your life in fucking People magazine.”

“You know, it’s crazy that we hadn’t met before,” Isabelle said, echoing the same thing Alex had thought earlier. “I’ve been here for almost two years now. Jackie talks about you all the time.”

“Uh oh.”

“Not in an uh oh way. You really changed her life, you know?” Isabelle looked at him thoughtfully, leaning back against the pile of pillows behind her. She put her hand on his arm again. 

“No,” Alex said emphatically, shaking his hand. “She changed mine.”

“That’s not what she says. And you know what it makes me think?”

“What’s that?”

Isabelle leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Maybe being around you will change my life too.”


	4. said we wouldn't, who we fooling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / said we shouldn't talk but now we're talking  
> / said we shouldn't touch but now we're touching  
> / said we wouldn't, said we wouldn't, who we fooling?  
> look at us now by lost kings

It only took six hours for Kat to contact him after the Snapchat. Alex had just been following instructions, took a selfie of him and Isabelle that night in his bed. And yeah, it had definitely looked incriminating. But that’s what Jackie had wanted. He woke up the next morning, not remembering when he had fallen asleep, Isabelle gone and the spot where she had been sitting cold.

He checked his phone before he even got up, as he always did. A couple of emails, a bunch of texts, mostly from Jackie about his itinerary for tonight. Instagram messages, tweets, a couple of Snapchats, notably the one from Mark that was in reply to his story, just a bunch of smirking emojis. He ignored it, moving on to the next snapchat.

It was just a black screen and a lot of text. A couple of phrases jumped out at him: “fuck you” and “how could you” and “asshole.” He checked the name, didn’t recognize it, and went to look at the person’s story. He knew the second he clicked on it, without even seeing her face, that it was Kat. What the hell? He could have sworn he had blocked her. He clicked on her name, realizing quickly that he had accidentally only muted her. Oops.

He debated not even telling Jackie; it didn’t really matter anymore now that they knew she wasn’t pregnant, right? But Jackie had been very specific in her instructions to inform her immediately if Kat tried to talk to him. He dragged himself out of bed, pulling his sweatpants on and wandered down the hall to Jackie’s room.

“What do you want, Alexander?” She rolled over, covering her head with a pillow as soon as he flicked the light on.

“Apparently, I don’t understand technology.” He threw his phone onto the bed and she shot up, grabbing it. 

“She said something to you.”

“On Snapchat, yeah.”

“Did you screenshot it?”

“No. Everything happened super fast.”

“Goddammit, Alexander. You are the oldest person I’ve ever met.” She rubbed her temples, squinting. Alex wasn’t sure whether it was because it was so bright in her room or because he had already given her a headache at seven o’clock in the morning. “Well.” She took a deep breath. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. But it’s a good thing you’re going out with Isabelle tonight.” She messed around on his phone for a few seconds before throwing it back to him. “Now she’s blocked.”

Alex threw himself onto Jackie’s bed, grabbing her favorite pillow and stuffing it under his head. She groaned, but scooted closer to him, snuggling into his side. “I’m sorry I’ve been so hard on you,” he said softly. 

“It’s my job, Alex. I knew the second I saw you fight for the first time that this was all going to be worth it.”

“I just don’t want to let you down.”

“You could never.” She propped her chin on his arm, staring up at him. “You’re gonna win this fight and then we’re gonna take a really nice vacation.”

“Oh yeah? To where?”

“Mmm…” She frowned. “Bora Bora?”

“Okay. We’ll go to Bora Bora.”

“Now get out of my room. I’m going back to sleep.” She rolled over, using all of her weight to try to push him out of bed. “And remember,” she yelled after him. “Be ready to go at seven tonight!”

“You got it, boss.”

He was accosted by Mark the second he got to the gym. “What the hell was going on in your house last night?”

Alex didn’t even pretend to misunderstand him. “Nothing, we were just hanging out.”

“Oh, really. In your bed at midnight.”

He shrugged. “She came in, wanted to hang out.”

“And you couldn’t put a shirt on?”

“Uh, no. Obviously.”

Alex quickly filled Mark in on the Snapchat he had gotten this morning. “This girl just isn’t gonna give up, is she?” Mark asked. “You’d think she’d be embarrassed about how things have gone so far but…”

“Apparently not.”

Alex dropped his bag on the floor, hopping on the treadmill. “See you in five miles,” Mark said, slapping Alex on the back and going to work out with one of the younger guys. 

Alex’s mind wandered while he was on the treadmill - five miles was definitely enough time for him to get lost in his thoughts. Normally while he worked out he was thinking of his opponent, knowing that they weren’t working as hard as he was, knowing that he had the mental edge, knowing that he was the world champion and he wasn’t going to be giving up that title anytime soon.

Today, he could only think of Isabelle, which he knew was just as pathetic as he thought it was, but he really couldn’t help himself. After he left Jackie’s room that morning, he went downstairs to eat before he left, and Isabelle was already up, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee, looking like she had gotten a full night’s sleep and hadn’t been in Alex’s bed until at least one in the morning.

“Hey,” he said, his voice still scratchy with sleep. “You sleep okay?”

“Great,” she said cheerily, stirring her coffee, spoon clinking against the side of the mug. “You definitely did. You passed out around one and you were out.”

“You could’ve stayed.” He turned his back to her, grabbing the oatmeal from the pantry, rolling his bad shoulder as he did. 

“I didn’t want to bother you. I was up a lot later than you.”

“You wouldn’t have. I sleep like I’m dead.” He knew that was why Jackie didn’t wake him up like a normal person would; jumping on him and screaming was basically the only way that worked, she had realized quickly. 

“I’ll remember that for next time.” She beamed a smile at him as he added water to his oatmeal, giving it a quick stir and shoving it into the microwave.

It felt like something had changed between them last night, like they had gone from just being awkward roommates to something more, something like friends. He knew he should be keeping his distance. There was an end date on this, literally; it was black and white, right there in the contract. If he got attached, it would be that much harder to say goodbye when it was over. But he couldn’t help himself. 

“So,” Isabelle said, wrinkling her nose as he sat down next to her to eat. “A, that looks disgusting. B, what does your schedule look like for today?”

“It’s not bad with a ton of brown sugar on it.”

“You didn’t put any brown sugar on it.”

“Gotta make weight.” He shoveled a huge bite into his mouth, wincing a little at the taste. “Gym this morning for a few hours, chiropractor’s appointment this afternoon, then tonight we’re going to Spago.”

“Right. Jackie said I have to make sure you’re ready by seven, and that as your fake girlfriend it is now my responsibility, not hers, to keep you in line.”

Alex laughed, poking her with his spoon. “Well, if anyone can do it, it’s you. Plus it’ll be good for Jackie to have a break, since I’m always worried she’s gonna fire me as a client.”

“She would never.”

After a few more minutes, he stood up, throwing his empty bowl into the sink. “What are you gonna do today?”

“I think Leven is gonna come over.” Isabelle poured more creamer into her coffee, stirring it thoroughly until it was as light as chocolate milk. “We were thinking about going shopping so I can get a dress for tonight.”

“Good idea.” Alex pulled open the junk drawer next to the pantry, rifling around in it for a few seconds before pulling a couple of hundreds out, sliding them across the counter to Isabelle. 

“Alex, I’m not taking this.”

“You have to. It’s in the contract, remember?”

She stuck her tongue out at him, leaving the hundreds on the counter. “See you tonight?”

He backed out of the kitchen, not wanting to break eye contact with her. “See you tonight.”

Yep. He was so gone. 

Why couldn’t he date her? Unless she was just a really good actor, she seemed interested. Jackie had said herself that she would have set them up in a normal dating situation, had Alex not gotten a little too cavalier with his personal life. But that was the catch. This wasn’t a normal situation. This was contractual, just business, over in two months and everyone would be none the wiser. He couldn’t change the rules on her like that. Any chance the two of them had was over before it began.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by Nick coming up to him, hitting the stop button on the treadmill. “Come on,” he said, gesturing behind him to where Mark was waiting. “Pads.”

* * *

There were paparazzi everywhere outside the gym when he left, and he knew Jackie hadn’t called them because her favorite guy, Josh, wasn’t there. She always gave him the heads up when they needed Alex to get some positive attention. This didn’t seem all that positive. Alex quickly realized why when he saw Kat get out of her car, coming up towards him.

He couldn’t get back in the gym fast enough; she had clearly already seen him, walked right up to him like there was nothing wrong, like she hadn’t come up with this crazy story and fed it to every media outlet he could find. 

He grabbed her arm, dragging her into the gym as inconspicuously as he could with cameras flashing all around them. Normally Jackie told him to be nice to the paparazzi, but he was sure even she would be on his side about this. “What are you doing here?” he hissed as soon as he made it inside away from the giant floor to ceiling windows at the front of the gym. He saw Mark and Nick sprint past him in the back, booking it into Dayo’s office.

“I needed to see you.”

“Why?” he snapped.

“I just wanted to talk to you. Things have been so weird.” Was she actually delusional?

Everyone in the gym was looking at them. Oh, he so did not need this right now. Mark and Nick came out of Dayo’s office, Dayo behind them, nodding towards his office. Alex took off towards the open door, trusting that Kat would follow him.

He slammed the door shut behind her, sitting down in Dayo’s office chair. She sat down across from him, crossing her legs. He knew that he should be texting Jackie 911 but what was she going to do, save for storm in here and cause even bigger of a scene? Plus a small part of him didn’t want Isabelle to know what was going on.

“Why did you do that?” Alex burst out after staring at her for a few seconds, waiting for her to say something. 

“Do what?” She blinked at him.

“Say that I got you… pregnant.”

Kat shrugged infuriatingly. “I don’t know. I thought it was true.”

“You said you were on the pill.”

“It’s not always effective.”

Alex dropped his head into his hands, not wanting to even look at her for fear that he was going to say something he really regretted. “So what are you doing here?”

“I thought maybe we could start over.”

He could see the shadows of feet outside the door. Dammit, Mark. “I’m dating someone.” Thank God for Jackie, her genius plans, and this easy out she had given him.

“What? Since when?”

He quickly tried to run through the timeline in his head - he had gone out with Kat two months ago, so if he said a month and a half he would be safe. He made a mental note to come up with something official that he could memorize if this ever, God forbid, came up again. “I don’t know, six weeks or so.”

Kat narrowed her eyes. “Is it serious?”

Alex hesitated. “Yes.” 

“How serious?”

He rubbed his forehead, ruffling absentmindedly through the paperwork on Dayo’s desk, seeing the schedule for the New Year’s Eve fight and Alex’s training schedule for fight camp. “I don’t want to talk about this with you. And you shouldn’t be here.” He stood up, folding his arms. “You gotta go.”

The door opened, Mark practically falling into the room. “Alex, you have that appointment,” he said, sounding like he was making it up even though Alex did have to get to the chiropractor’s. Kat didn’t look like she believed him, but stood up, grabbing her bag from the floor where she had dropped it. She stalked out of the room without a word, pushing past Mark and Nick. 

“Oh. My God.” Mark collapsed into the chair Kat had just vacated. “My heart is pounding out of my chest, I’m not joking.”

“What the fuck was that?” Alex grabbed his phone, meaning to text Jackie as Nick and Dayo came in, closing the door behind them.

“I thought you took care of that, Alex.” Dayo rarely looked angry, but right now he was definitely visibly unhappy. “We discussed this.”

“We did take care of it,” Alex protested. “That’s the whole point of having Isabelle around. And we’re going out tonight, so somebody should pick up that story and it’ll be everywhere by tomorrow morning if Jackie has anything to say about it.”

“This is a distraction that we cannot well afford, Alex.” Dayo sighed heavily. “Especially with what Dominic Nicholas has been posting on his Instagram.”

“Oh God. What now?”

“Just more of the same.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “I’m ignoring it.”

“As you should be. Do you want me to call Jackie, have her take care of what happened here? It’s going to be all over the internet.”

“No.” Alex felt his blood run cold at the thought of even telling Jackie. “I’ll do it. She should hear it from me.” 

Jackie never said anything about the girls he brought home, just ushered them out in the morning, making sure they hadn’t shoved anything into their bag after the unfortunate Danielle incident. Most of them were really nice, far too eager but usually agreeable. He honestly hadn’t realized that Kat was any different.

He had met her at 1 Oak, went out with Mark and Nick the way they always did when he felt like needed to blow off some steam. They did the same thing as usual, got a table in the corner, ordered a couple of bottles, and waited for girls to come up to them. 

He had noticed Kat right away, her long black hair catching the light. She was with a group of girls, all of them pretty but not as pretty as she was. “Which one?” Mark asked, nudging him in the side, knowing him well enough to know that he had found someone. “The dark haired one?”

“Bingo.” Alex threw back a shot. “I’m going in.”

Mark was already distracted by a little blonde girl walking up to them. Alex made his way over to the group of girls, pushing his way through the crowd until he got up to them. The girl looked up when he approached their booth, and he couldn’t focus on any of the other girls. Just her. “Hey,” he said, leaning close to her so that she could hear him over the pounding music, brushing her ear with his mouth. “I’m Alex. Can I get you a drink?”

She pulled back, smiling at him. Two hours later, they were leaving the club, Alex sliding into the Uber after her. She had seemed so normal, although he had been pretty toasted so his judgment was not the best. Jackie had just rolled her eyes when she followed Kat out in the morning, doing her best bouncer impression. “That one is gonna be trouble,” she told Alex.

“Why do you think that?”

“Can’t say.” She took a sip of coffee. “Just a feeling.”

He hated it when Jackie was right. 

“Do you want me to come with you?” Mark asked, walking Alex out to his car past the horde of paparazzi that was still there. Normally Alex stopped and answered a few questions, but like hell that was going to happen today. 

Alex hesitated, thinking seriously about taking Mark up on his offer, but finally deciding against it. “No, that’s okay. I don’t want you to die too. Actually, she might only kill me. She still needs my yearly take-home and that knock-out bonus. And I have to go straight to my chiropractor’s appointment.” He opened the car door, throwing his gym bag inside. “I’ll text you tonight after she finishes ripping me a new one.”

Mark shoved him into the car, turning to yell something at the paparazzi behind him. “Good luck!” he said through the open window, smacking the top of Alex’s car which Alex would make sure to kill him for later, since the McLaren had set him back two hundred thousand dollars. 

Jackie was waiting for him when he got home from the chiropractor’s, standing there right as he got off the elevator. She didn’t say anything, just cleared her throat and held her phone out to him. He realized right away that he was looking at his tagged photos on Instagram, and saw immediately that E! News had posted a photo of the two of them, Alex with his hand on Kat’s arm, looking down at her. They looked so much like a couple that even Alex was fooled for a second.

“I can explain,” he said, handing her phone back to her, but she didn’t even give him a chance, turning around and stalking off to her office. “Jackie, come on!” He ran after her, thanking God that Isabelle was out of the house with Jackie. “I swear there’s an explanation that makes sense.” How was this tiny girl so fast? “Jackie!”

She sat down in her office chair, folding her hands on the desk and staring at Alex. “She showed up,” he said hurriedly. “I didn’t know all those paps were gonna be there. She must have called them. I told her I’m dating someone and she got mad and left. That was it, I swear.” 

Still nothing.

“Jackie, come on. Say something.”

“You should have called me.”

“I know. I know. There was just a lot going on.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you and Isabelle are going out tonight. I’m going to call in all the paps I can find, and you’re going to talk to them and be civil and look like you’re in love with her and everything is going to be great. Deal?”

Alex sighed. “Deal.”

“Now get out.” Jackie was already dialing, and Alex could tell just by the sound of the buttons that she was calling Dayo. He stomped out of her office.

He loved Jackie, more than literally anyone else in the entire world besides his parents and his siblings. She was his best friend, his sounding board, his protector, his home. But she could piss him off more than anyone else ever could. He slammed his bedroom door behind him, knowing she would hear him and wanting to make her angry. 

“Shut up, Alex!” he heard her scream from downstairs, so he slammed his bathroom door too just out of spite. “Alex!”

Alex got in the shower, making as much noise as he possibly could. His bedroom was right above Jackie’s office, a fact she often bemoaned. If he sat in the chairs by his window, he could hear every word she said through the vents. He rolled his bad shoulder; it felt much better after his appointment, but he still held it under the scalding hot water for a few extra seconds.

He glanced at his phone when he jumped out, realizing that he had about four hours before he and Isabelle had to be ready to go, which was just enough time for him to take a nap. He figured once he woke up, Jackie would be done losing her mind and ready to talk to him again. He needed her on his side in case the Looney Toon showed up again.

* * *

He woke up late, which was surprising to no one, and the only reason he woke up at all was because Jackie came in and jumped on his head, which was also not surprising to anyone. “Alexander!” She only called him Alexander when she was fake mad at him, which was a good sign for him.

He jerked awake. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“You’re late.” She jumped up, pulling the covers off of him. “Jesus Christ, Alex, could you wear underwear to bed for once in your life?”

He rolled over, grabbing the covers off the floor as slowly as possible just to punish her for being so meddling. “No one told you to come in here and take my blankets away.”

“What if it had been Isabelle?”

“Well then I would be killing myself right now. Also, I think normal people have more boundaries than the two of us do.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She was already in his closet, which was bigger than Jackie’s entire office. “What are you gonna wear?”

“I don’t know.” Alex stretched, cracking all of the bones in his back at once. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“That’s shocking to me.” Jackie came out holding a dark blue suit with black lapels and a white shirt. “Wear this.” She hung it up in his bathroom. “Black tie, black shoes. You’re gonna look good but not too good. Not better than Is, which is the whole point.”

“Jackie. In order for me to get dressed, you’re gonna have to go.”

“Fine.” She slammed his door on the way out, the wall sconces rattling. Yep, he deserved that. 

Jackie had bought all of his suits, made the rounds at Hugo Boss and Brooks Brothers and Giorgio Armani. She had great taste, but it was nothing compared to what he saw when he came down the stairs to see Isabelle waiting in the living room. She was sitting on the couch, jumping up when she saw him, and he practically fell down the last three stairs.

“Holy shit,” he said, the words falling out of his mouth before he could hold them back.

“Do I look okay?” For the first time since knowing her, Isabelle looked nervous. She smoothed down her bright white floor-length dress that looked almost light gold as she turned, catching the overhead lights. Alex was sure that if she stood in the sunlight she would actually glow. Her hair was stick straight and loose around her shoulders, even darker against the white of the dress.

“You look... “ He tried to think of something he could say that Jackie would consider appropriate. “So much better than okay.”

Jackie appeared around the corner, hair up in a bun with a pen shoved through it. Alex had spent a lot of time trying to untangle her hair from around a goddamn pen. “Okay, good, you’re both on time.” She hadn’t even looked up at them, scrolling through her phone. “The paparazzi will be there when you get to the restaurant. Try to look like you two love each other or something. Alex, open her door and try not to look like a damn fool.”

“Jackie,” he hissed at her, even though Isabelle was well within earshot. “I know how to go on a date.”

“No, you don’t.” Jackie didn’t even hesitate. “Now you two need to get going because Pauly D is DJing at Hyde tonight and I got a lot of shit for taking paparazzi away from that. You have no idea what kind of favors I had to call in.” She finally looked up at them. “You two look wonderful.” She finally smiled, looking like the old Jackie who wasn’t stressed out all the time, the Jackie that had existed before Kat came along and Alex lost control of his life. “Now get out of here.”

Alex had thought about using a driver, but ended up deciding that if he had to drive, he would be a whole lot less uncomfortable. He wouldn’t say that he was nervous, but yeah, he was definitely nervous. Sitting across from Isabelle at dinner, just the two of them, was going to be a whole lot different than their relationship had been so far. 

He grabbed the McLaren key, following Isabelle into the elevator, instinctively putting his hand on the small of her back. He heard her take a deep breath as they stood in the elevator as it dropped down to the underground parking garage. “You okay?” he asked.

“Better than.” She looked up at him, her bright eyes ringed with dark. “You sure you don’t want to back out?”

He laughed. “I’m sure.”

Alex hit a button on his keys, the doors on the McLaren rising up like wings. He stood there awkwardly as Isabelle slid in, wanting to help her but not sure how. Maybe Jackie was right; he didn’t really have any idea of how to be on a date. Once she was inside, her dress tucked up around her, he shut the door, taking a deep breath as he walked around to the other side.

“Alright,” he said, pushing a button, the engine roaring to life and the garage door rising up in front of them. “Let’s go.”

Spago was literally down the street from Alex’s apartment, and he felt a little ridiculous driving only half a mile to go to dinner, but what were they going to do, walk there? When they got to the restaurant, there was a crowd of paparazzi outside the restaurant, cameras already flashing. Alex took a deep breath, reaching over and putting his hand on Isabelle’s thigh while simultaneously waving off the valets that came rushing up to open Isabelle’s door. 

“You ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

He got out, paparazzi rushing up to the car and the Bellagio’s security stepping in to push them back a few feet. “Alex!” they all kept yelling at them, and he saw Josh, Jackie’s favorite, the one who worked exclusively for E! News and always made sure Alex got a great edit. He gestured to Josh, making sure he was following Alex over to the other side of the car. 

“Who are you here with, Alex?” one of them yelled to him, and he was thankful that the McLaren’s windows were tinted, so that Isabelle got a few extra seconds of privacy. He took another deep breath, pulling open her door, stepping back as it raised up. He held out his hand to her, helping her out of the car as the flashbulb popped around them, practically blinding them. He had thought they were taking a lot of pictures when he got out of the car; it was nothing compared to this.

Isabelle smiled up at him, doing a great job of pretending like they were completely alone. He closed the car door, handing the keys and a couple of folded bills to the valet, turning to follow Isabelle into the restaurant. He had his hand on her back, and he could feel her skin burning under his hand.

“Thank you,” she said to the white-coated man holding the door open for them. It was darker in the restaurant, lit by a ton of candles, and Alex kept his eyes trained on Isabelle’s back as he followed her through the restaurant, led by a hostess to their table, set off in a private room to the side of the restaurant.

Once they were seated, water glasses filled and menus set in front of them, Isabelle leaned forward, the candles lighting up her eyes. “That was intense.”

“I know,” Alex groaned. “I’m so sorry. It’s a lot.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She took a sip of water. “It was fun.”

“You think that now. You might not so much in two months.”

She reached across the table, putting her hand on his. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need. You know that. And honestly, I would feel the same way even if it wasn’t in the contract.”

Alex felt the blood rush to his head, and he was saved by Mark Andelbradt, Spago’s head chef, coming up to their table. He jumped in, reaching out to shake Mark’s hand and introduce Isabelle. “You all caused quite a scene out there,” Mark said, laughing. 

“It’s been crazy.” Alex shook his head. 

“Well, it’s really nice to meet Alex’s girlfriend.” Mark smiled at Isabelle. “And we all really hope you enjoy your meal tonight.”

“Oh, I can’t wait.” Isabelle smiled sweetly at him, and Alex was struck by how great she would be as an in-the-spotlight girlfriend, his heart jumping at the thought and at the sound of someone calling Isabelle his girlfriend for the first time. She could charm anyone she met. 

The waiters proceeded to bring out more food than Alex had ever seen in his life: kusshi oysters and Maine lobster, baby beets and prosciutto salad, squid ink pasta and saffron risotto, crispy skin branzino and Colorado rack of lamb. Isabelle proceeded to eat more than he ever would have guessed, taking giant bites of everything and force feeding Alex, even as he protested that he had to make weight in a month and a half.

“Live a little, Alex,” she said, holding out a forkful of house made pasta. “One bite isn’t gonna kill you.”

He grinned at her, finally relenting and letting her feed it to him. Jackie would be so proud of them; anyone around them would think they were actually a couple. He realized quickly that there was no need for him to have been so nervous; sitting across from Isabelle at a fancy restaurant felt no different than sitting across from her eating breakfast or next to her in bed. She was the easiest person to talk to, and he didn’t know if it was because she already knew all of his secrets or because she was the person she was.

“So. Tell me about fighting,” she said, shoving a giant bite of lamb in her mouth and washing it down with red wine. “How did you get started?”

“Well.” He took his time cutting a piece of lobster, spearing it with his fork. “I started wrestling when I was super little. My uncle had been a wrestler in college so he started my brother and I really young. And then I started doing judo because my uncle wanted me to be more well-rounded as a wrestler after I started winning meets and stuff. Judo turned into MMA, and I started fighting in amateur bouts as soon as I turned eighteen.”

“How did Jackie find you?”

“She just showed up one day. I mean, you know her background, she was doing… I think it was recruiting for corporate management at that point?”

Isabelle tilted her head. “That was what… five years ago? Yeah, we would’ve been right out of college and she was at that firm in LA.”

“Right.” Alex nodded. “She came to one of my fights, told me that she had no idea what this was about but she had been following my career and that she thought I was gonna be really great. And we moved here shortly after.”

“How did you start fighting professionally?”

“Jackie set up a couple more amateur fights out here, making sure that the right people saw, and I’m sure she harassed Dana constantly because one day I got a call saying that they wanted to sign me to UFC.”

“Well I’m excited to see you fight. I don’t know anything about it either, but I’m going to make sure I do my homework before Fight Night.”

The waiters kept coming and going, staying mostly silent, refilling wine glasses and taking plates away. Their table was almost completely cleared, one of the waiters coming up and asking them if they wanted dessert. Alex was already poised to say no, getting ready to ask for the check, but Isabelle cut him off.

“We would love dessert,” she said, leaning forward and propping her chin on her hand. “What do you have? Actually, never mind, we’ll just take one of everything to go.”

“Isabelle!” Alex flicked a drop of water across the table at her as soon as the waiter had walked away. “What part of making weight do you not understand?”

“All of it.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ve never seen a weight cut before. Also none of this is for you because I refuse to share.”

The waiter came back quickly with a bag that Alex could see was piled high with boxes. He had seen Isabelle eat tonight, but there was no way even she could put down five different desserts. The waiter started to give Alex the check, but Alex waved it off, handing over his Black Card. 

“Alex.” Isabelle leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Let me pay for some of it. This is ridiculous.”

“Absolutely not. This is the least I can do for putting you through that shit show outside.”

Thankfully, all of the paparazzi were gone when they left, off at Hyde or 1 Oak or Omnia or Jewel. Alex just hoped they had played their part well enough, for his sake and Jackie’s.

* * *

E! News  
November 12, 2018 10:33 a.m.  
Alexander Ludwig steps out with new girlfriend

Alexander Ludwig had quite a night last night. After rumored reports that he was going to be a father, he appeared in public with his new girlfriend, Isabelle Fuhrman, 26 year old publicist from Las Vegas. The pair enjoyed a long dinner at Spago before heading home. 

“She was feeding him and they were laughing,” an eyewitness shared with E! News. “You can tell they’re really in love.”

A rep for Alexander responded to E! News, stating that Alexander and Isabelle have been dating for six weeks, and that any rumors have him having a child with someone else are patently false.

Alexander is scheduled to fight Dominic Nicholas in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve.


	5. not that thing in my chest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / they tell me think with my head  
> / not that thing in my chest  
> / they got their hands at my neck this time  
> / but you're the one that i want  
> / and if that's really so wrong  
> / then they don't know what this feeling is like  
> this feeling by kelsea ballerini and the chainsmokers

Jackie was over the moon at the E! News article. She sent it to Alex the second it came out, his phone dinging as he was smack in the middle of sparring with Dayo. As soon as the session ended, Dayo clapping him on the back, he leaned on the ropes. “Mark, can you check that for me?” 

Mark picked up his phone, unlocking it and bringing it over to the side of the ring. “Jackie sent you a link.” He opened it, holding it up for Alex to read since he still had his gloves on and his hands were still wrapped. Alex rested his arms on the ropes, trying not to drip any sweat onto Mark or his phone screen, his back still heaving from the workout. He squinted, Mark pushing the phone even closer to his face. 

“Sorry,” Alex muttered. “Don’t have my glasses on.”

“Holy shit, you are old.”

Finally, Alex finished reading. The article had been good, and there were a couple of pictures, which was great. There was one of Alex getting out of the car, pushing his hair back and looking off to the right. There was one of Alex helping Isabelle out of the car, the flash of her dress just visible in the photo. And then there was one of the two of them, Alex’s hand firmly splayed across Isabelle’s back, looking down at her with a smile on his face as they made their way towards the entrance of the restaurant.

“It looks great,” Mark said, taking the phone back and scanning the article quickly. “Jackie is gonna be psyched.” 

“Definitely.” Alex swiped the sweat off his forehead with his wrist. “Maybe now everyone can calm down.” He moved back into the center of the ring, Dayo ready for another round. 

He was exhausted, and not just from the work out. He had stayed up late with Isabelle last night when they got back from dinner. She started dividing up the desserts the second they got into the kitchen. “Okay.” She set all the boxes in a line on the counter. “Jackie can have this pear thing and the lemon cake since she hates chocolate.”

“That’s because she’s a serial killer,” Alex said, Jackie screaming at him from her office. “Go to bed, Jacqueline!”

“I want the chocolate souffle. The chocolate mousse is for Ava. And you get this pancake thing.”

“Isabelle. That’s huge.”

“That’s what she said. Also, I don’t care. It’s Wolfgang Puck’s signature dessert and you’re going to fucking eat it.” He didn’t think it was possible but he might have found someone even bossier than Jackie.

Isabelle came into his room again that night after he had already fallen asleep, crawling up behind him and putting her cold little hands all over his back. Thank God he had decided to put on underwear, he thought as he awoke abruptly. 

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered, hooking her chin over her shoulder. 

Alex rolled over sleepily, holding his arm out to her, and she cuddled into his side, pulling the blankets up around them. He fell asleep again almost instantly, realizing only when he woke up in the morning that for the first time in his life he had been able to fall asleep with the television on. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was so exhausted or if it was because she was next to him.

He knew that their relationship wasn’t normal, that he had been promoting this thing as strictly business, business, business to himself since the beginning. But if this was a business relationship, she wouldn’t be in his bed every night and he wouldn’t feel this overwhelming desire to kiss her at every turn. 

So he was almost relieved when he got a text from her that morning, saying that she was going to stay at Leven’s for the night and have a “girls night,” whatever the heck that was. He texted her back, telling her to have fun and take Jackie because God only knew if anyone needed time off, it was that woman. He needed some space, if only to convince himself that they could be friends, but nothing more, because he was quickly forgetting that fact.

Count on Jackie to make even that just a little bit harder. When he got home that day, she was waiting for him in her office, Isabelle already sitting down in one of the high-backed leather chairs positioned in front of Jackie’s desk. She looked up at him as he walked in.

“Are we in trouble?” He sat down next to Isabelle, winking at her.

“I guess so. I feel like I’m back in the principal’s office.”

“You? Oh please. I bet you never did anything wrong in high school.”

Isabelle opened her mouth, but Jackie cut her off. “Can we please stay on message here?” She turned her computer monitor towards them, the article pulled up. “This is wonderful. You two did a really good job.” She clicked over to another tab, those dumb pictures of Alex and Kat at the gym popping up on the screen. “But I think we need to do a little more to counteract this.”

Isabelle leaned forward, forehead wrinkled, looking at the screen. Alex waited for her to say something. “This is her?”

“That’s her,” Alex said, sighing. “Crazy and all.”

“Hmm.” Isabelle sat back. “I would’ve thought you were into blondes.”

Alex shook his head quickly. “Yikes, no. Definitely dark hair.” He flushed, adjusting his beanie to try to hide it.

Jackie sighed loudly. “Trying to talk to you two is like trying to herd cats. Can we get back to my point?”

“Have you even made your point yet?”

“No, because you keep derailing me, Alexander.” Jackie folded her hands, looking back and forth between them. “I think we need one more public appearance to kind of introduce you guys as a couple.”

“Isn’t that what last night was?”

“I mean, yeah, sure, you could say that, but it was more of you two on a date. We need you to really look like a couple.”

Alex knew immediately where Jackie’s mind was going. “So you want us to…”

“Go out to the club. Hang out for a while. Kiss in front of the paparazzi. Normal stuff.”

There was no way Jackie could have known that basically all Alex thought about when he was around Isabelle was kissing her, but he still hated her for suggesting it a tiny bit. She was supposed to be on his side. A much bigger part of him was trying to contain himself, not seem too eager.

Isabelle cocked her head. “We can do that. When?”

Jackie flipped through her calendar. “Friday.” Okay, he only had two more days to get through. He could do that. “I think you guys should go to Jewel or Marquee. Not 1 Oak, Alex, you’re there way too much,” she said quickly, knowing what he was about to say. “Actually, I think you should go to both. Start at Marquee, end up at Jewel. And bring all of your friends: Mark, Nick, Leven, Jack, so it looks more normal and not just like you two are out alone at the club like a couple of weirdos.”

“You should come, Jackie,” Alex said innocently, knowing that she had a standing dinner date with Dayo every Friday night that she tried to hide from him.

She just glared at him. “You two really need to sell this. I would say one more good article like the one from this morning and you’ll be out of the woods, Alex.”

He was up on the third floor doing laps when Isabelle came to say goodbye. He didn’t notice her at first, concentrating on his pace and trying not to lose count of his lap number like he did every single time he swam the mile. He only saw her when he had finished his thirty laps, had no idea how long she had been sitting there watching him, and he stopped, putting both elbows on the pool deck, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead, and looking up at her.

“Hey,” he said. “Whatcha doing?”

“I just love watching you swim,” she joked. “I’m headed off to Leven’s. Just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving so you can walk around naked or something.” She cocked her head to the side. “Although you essentially do that anyways.”

“I will splash you. Don’t think I won’t.” 

Alex pulled himself out of the pool, muscles in his arms working overtime because they were so tired. She handed him his towel. “Jackie’s coming with me, so you’ll have the house to himself.”

He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had been in this apartment alone. Two weeks ago it would have been something he looked forward to, but now he just felt like the whole place would seem empty without his girls. 

“Okay,” he said, looking down at her and suddenly realizing how close together they were standing. “I’ll, uh… see you tomorrow?”

Isabelle reached out, tracing the edge of his swimsuit, her fingers brushing over his stomach, so quickly and lightly that he thought he might have imagined it. Suddenly she was backing away, Jackie yelling to her from downstairs. “Yeah.” She lit up his world with that smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alex sat down on the edge of the pool once she left, laying back on the wet pool deck, towel under his neck. Wow, he thought as he looked up at the stars, water rippling in front of him. He was so in over his head.

* * *

“What is Leven like?” Mark asked him at the gym the next day, tilting his head. 

“No. Nope. No.” Alex let the bar crash down, one of Dayo’s pet peeves, and sat up from the weight bench. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Come on. Do you want me to be alone forever?”

“Honestly, yes. If I am, then you should be too. Solidarity and all that. Besides Leven is way off limits.”

“Why?”

Alex lowered his voice. “You can’t date my fake girlfriend’s best friend. My life is already complicated enough as it is.” 

Mark rolled his eyes. “One more set.” Alex lay back down, back muscles burning. “She’s really pretty though,” he said as Alex grunted out ten more bench presses. 

“How the fuck…” Alex said between lifts. “Do you know… what she looks like?” He dropped the bar, not even bothering to sit back up, knowing Mark would push him to do one more. 

“I follow Isabelle on Instagram. Obviously. And you should be too. Boyfriends follow their girlfriends on Instagram.”

Yeah, that one had sort of slipped by Alex. When he got back to his apartment that morning, he sat at the kitchen counter and pulled out his phone, typing Isabelle’s name into the Instagram search bar. There she was. He quickly clicked the follow button, noting that she already followed him, and scrolled through her pictures.

The last one had been posted three weeks ago, a picture of her and Jack and Leven, sticking their tongues out at the camera. There were pictures of her dressed up at the club, pictures of food, the sky, the strip at night. There was a picture of her with someone who had to be her older sister; they looked exactly alike. But her account had been radio silent since she had moved in.

He put his phone down on the counter, resting his head in his hands. He had been feeling lately that his days were pretty monotonous; it wasn’t a bad thing to him, but it was the same thing over and over: wake up, go to the gym, work out, come home, swim, lift, eat chicken and rice, think about Dominic Nicholas, go to bed. Isabelle had changed all of that.

“Alex!” someone screeched from behind him, and he jumped halfway out of his bar stool, letting out a yell.

He whipped around to see Jackie and Isabelle both sitting on the couch, blankets in their laps and cups of coffee in their hands. “How fucking long have you two been sitting there?”

“Since before you got back.” Jackie smirked at him.

“My God,” Isabelle said. “You really screamed.”

“Yeah, but in a cool way though.”

“No, not so much.” 

“Shut up, Jackie.” He shoved his phone into his sweatshirt pocket. “I’m going to go take a shower. You two can keep sitting here being creepers.”

He could hear them laughing behind him as he went upstairs. 

* * *

Jackie rarely, if ever, came to the gym. Alex couldn’t remember the last time she had showed up there. She often said that it was not her idea of a good time to spend her morning in a small space with a bunch of sweating guys, even if they were guys who looked like Alex which was the closest she would ever come to giving him a compliment.

He could count on one hand every time she had ever come to the gym: one was at the old gym when the UFC had called to offer him a contract; one was on the opening day of this gym, his own gym; and one was now.

She came storming in, looking completely out of place in her Armani suit and Louboutins. Alex didn’t notice her at first, but all of the younger guys sure did, a whisper spreading through the gym like a river, washing over Alex as he lay flat on his back in the ring, trying his damndest to armbar Mark. 

“Tap!” Mark finally screeched as Alex cranked his arm back, holding him down with his legs. Alex let go, staying on the ground, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Mark had gotten him in one hell of a rear naked choke, and he still felt like his lungs were on fire. He held his arm out, fist bumping Mark and throwing his other arm over his eyes.

He was jerked out of his two seconds of peace by Jackie screaming his name from six inches away, standing on the other side of the ropes. He rolled over onto his stomach, still refusing to get up. “What in the Judge Judy are you doing here?” 

Jackie could barely speak, and Alex’s first thought was that something was wrong with his family or Isabelle. His heart beat even faster than it had been when he was sparring with Mark, and he thought for two seconds that he might pass out, thankful that he was already down on the ground. He pulled himself to his knees, reaching out to grab her arm. “Spit it out, Jackie. I’m too old for this.”

She thrust her phone at him, an email pulled up on the screen. He scanned it quickly, only one phrase jumping out at him before his vision went a little fuzzy at the edges: Sports Illustrated.

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No.”

“Alex! Yes!”

They had been chasing Sports Illustrated for five years. Professional fighters almost never made it on the cover of the magazine; most notable were Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey, but those two were basically it, and they were arguably the best the sport had ever seen. But Alex had very clearly seen “Sports Illustrated” and “cover article.” This had to be a prank.

Jackie had badgered and badgered and badgered like only Jackie really could, and each time they were told by some editor of something that while they were keeping a close eye on Alex, a cover was a big deal. 

“Yes, well, this fight is a big deal,” Jackie said now when Alex brought that up. “They want you.”

Mark crawled over to him, nursing his hurting elbow. “What the hell is going on?”

Jackie shoved her phone in Mark’s face too, who let out the loudest scream the gym had ever heard, immediately bringing Nick and Dayo running. Within seconds, the five of them were complete messes, running around, jumping, screaming, hugging. Everyone else in the gym must have thought they were insane, at least until Dayo told everyone in his general vicinity, and soon the building was filled with people hyped out of their minds.

“When is it?” Alex asked breathlessly once they had all calmed down enough to speak to each other.

“Monday.” Jackie pulled out her ever-present schedule; Alex swore she was the only person in the whole world who still used a paper calendar. (“That’s untrue. Why would they still sell them at the store? You’ll be thankful when I inevitably lose my phone or you pull me into the pool again.”) “I figured we should do it as soon as possible. You’ll do the photo shoot and then the interview. There will be some camera crews around too, so I figure we need Isabelle there.”

Alex’s heart jumped, like it always did at the sound of her name. “Probably a good idea,” he said, trying to come off nonchalant. 

“Okay. I’ll talk to her about it tonight before you go out. Speaking of…” She pointed her pen at Mark and Nick. “You’ll both be there, right?”

“And miss my chance to finally get to talk to Leven in person?” Mark asked innocently. “Never. Ow, Alex, Jesus!”

“We’ll be there,” Nick said, the voice of reason for once. 

“Good.” Jackie shoved her pen into her bun, Alex groaning inwardly. “Dayo, I’ll see you tonight. Boys, I’ll see you at the house. Please be on your best behavior - we don’t need Isabelle running off anywhere at this point.”

You could say that again. 

* * *

Isabelle was so excited when Alex told her about Sports Illustrated that he thought, for two seconds, that she was about to kiss him. She shrieked, throwing her glass of water in the air, glass shattering on the floor and water flying everywhere, before running at him and jumping into his arms, her legs around his waist. “No fucking way!” she screamed in his ear, and he wrapped his arms around her tighter, smiling so big his face hurt.

“Seriously. We shoot on Monday.” Isabelle pulled back to look at him, framing his face with her hands. She was so close he could smell strawberry lip gloss and green apple shampoo and her perfume that smelled inexplicably like birthday cake ice cream.

“Oh my God. Can I come?”

“We need you there,” he said, trying not to bust out with the fact that he felt like he needed her around for personal reasons, not just business ones. “They’re gonna interview me, so they’ll probably talk to me too, and they’ll be taking video and stuff too.”

“I am so there.” She jumped down, and Alex tried not to show how reluctant he was to let her go. “Oh, Jesus.” She looked at the mess on the floor. “I am so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He watched her turn in circles, her dark hair catching the sun that was setting through the giant windows. “I’ll take care of it. You should go get ready; we gotta be ready to go in like an hour and a half.”

“Thanks, Alex!” She threw the words back over her shoulder as she skipped out of the kitchen, deftly dodging broken glass.

Mark and Nick showed up shortly after, pouring themselves drinks from the massive bar in Alex’s living room that he hardly ever touched. He mostly only drank socially when he was out at the club, trying to keep himself in check as much as possible. “Where is she?” Mark hissed to him.

“Not here yet.” It took everything Alex had to keep from kidney punching him. He was going to have to keep a close eye on them tonight. “I will take you down, Reardon. I don’t care if we’re in public or not.”

Mark narrowed his eyes at him, taking a sip of his beer. “Like hell you will.”

Alex was about to say something scathing back when the elevator doors opened, Leven bursting into the room like a tall blonde tornado, arms full of bags. “Alex!” She paused briefly in front of him to kiss him on the cheek. The girl never stopped moving; she had more energy than anyone Alex had ever met, including Isabelle. “Where is Isabelle?”

“Up in her room. Still getting ready I think.”

“Well, introduce me to your friends before I go up there.”

“Oh, this is my brother, Nick. He’s one of my coaches.”

“Nice to meet you.” Leven beamed a kilawatt smile in Nick’s direction, and it looked to Alex like he couldn’t physically speak.

Mark stepped forward before Alex had a chance to even say anything else. “Here, let me take some of those.”

“Oh God, thank you.” Leven immediately offloaded ninety percent of what she was holding into Mark’s waiting arms.

“I’m Mark,” he said. “I’m Alex’s judo coach.”

Leven cocked her head, biting her bottom lip, and Alex knew immediately that he was fucked. “I have no idea what judo is, but I would love it if you could explain it to me.”

“Absolutely.” Mark followed Leven towards the stairs, shooting a smirk back over his shoulder at Alex.

Isabelle and Leven came back down twenty minutes later, just enough time for Nick to get really sloshed. Alex was sitting on the couch with his back to the stairs, flicking peanuts at Nick, who had literally no idea where they were coming from. He kept screaming “what is happening?” and turning around to look at the ceiling behind him. Jack had just gotten there, plopping himself down on the couch next to Alex and immediately joining in the peanut throwing.

Needless to say, Alex was not prepared when Isabelle walked around the corner of the couch, coming over to him and putting her hands on his shoulders. He grinned up at her. “You trying to square up or something?”

“How do I look?”

She was wearing a short gold dress with a low back and shoes so high he was sure he would be carrying her by the end of the night. Her hair was up, falling around her face and leaving her back bare. “Perfect,” he said softly, putting both hands on her waist and standing up. Thankfully Mark was still romancing Leven over in the corner and Nick was definitely not listening to him in his current state. “You ready?”

She immediately snapped into mom mode, taking Nick’s beer away from him, setting in the coffee table and assuring him that it was not possible for peanuts to just rain from the skies, herding Mark and Leven towards the door, giving Leven a look as she did so, holding her hand out to Alex.

His penthouse was in the same building as Marquee, so they made their way outside, walking around the side to the club’s front entrance. Paparazzi were everywhere, and Alex knew it definitely wasn’t just for him tonight. Friday nights were big nights at Marquee. Mark pushed his way through, throwing an elbow here and there, Leven with a firm grasp on the back of his shirt. Nick and Jack brought up the middle, and Alex and Isabelle made sure everyone made it inside, her arm around his waist and his hooked over her shoulders. 

He realized that they probably should have talked about tonight before the night actually started; he had no idea when or where or how he was supposed to fake this kiss, but it was far too late to come up with a plan at this point. He would have to just wing it. Honestly, it was all Jackie’s fault for not being more specific. She knew she shouldn’t leave him to his own devices. That was how he got into this situation in the first place.

Marquee was packed, one of the bouncers taking charge and leading the six of them to a VIP booth where there were already a couple of bottle girls waiting for them. Nick plopped down immediately, gesturing to one of the girls. Alex knew he was going to have to watch him closely for his cut-off point, which was swiftly approaching. 

“Thank you,” he said to the girl who brought him a couple of bottles of Cristal and one of Grey Goose, and he slipped a couple of bills into her hand. Nick immediately made a grab for the Cristal, but Alex was much quicker than him even when they were both sober, and he held it out of Nick’s reach, pouring glasses for Isabelle and Leven. 

Isabelle waited until he had a little tumbler of Grey Goose, clinking her glass against his. “Cheers,” she said, grinning up at him, and then turning away quickly, practically throwing her phone at Leven. “Picture.”

Leven knew immediately what Isabelle wanted, directing the two of them to a spot next to the booth where the rest of the guys weren’t in the frame. “I need it for my Instagram,” she said to him, slipping her arm around his waist, and Alex immediately got a little creeped out at the fact that he had just been looking at her Instagram and thinking that she hadn’t posted anything in a while. He smiled at the camera, one arm firmly around her.

“Okay, now look at each other,” Leven said, scrolling through the pictures she had just taken. “Like a look of love.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes, laughing at her best friend as she put both arms around Alex’s waist, one leg bent behind her. He put his arms around her, glass of vodka still clutched in one hand, just brushing the small of her back.

“There,” Leven said, satisfied with her handiwork, giving Isabelle’s phone back to her.

“Okay, I’m gonna airdrop you this one,” Isabelle said to Alex as they sat down again. Nick had found a girl, tiny with bright red hair and Alex thought for a brief second that Jackie had actually decided to come out with them for the first time ever. At least he was preoccupied now.

The picture popped up on his phone screen a few seconds later, the first one Leven took. He leaned over Isabelle’s phone to see the second one, which she was in the middle of posting to Instagram. Alex could see over her shoulder that the caption said “favorite” with a little star emoji, and he felt his face get hot.

“Post yours too,” she said, and he quickly pulled up the app, uploading the picture captionless and tagging Marquis. “There.” She put her hand on his knee. “Now we’re Instagram official.”

Over the next couple of hours, Nick got more and more drunk until Alex finally asked the bottle girls to make sure no one was bringing him drinks. “We’ve still got another club to go,” he said, snatching the Bud Light out of his hand. “We need you able to walk on your own, cause I’m not sure not going to be carrying you.”

Isabelle and Leven were out on the dance floor with a group of girls they had met, and Mark was on the couch next to Alex, not even trying to be discreet about the fact that he couldn’t stop staring at Leven. Alex glanced at his watch, seeing that it was almost twelve thirty and they should probably get moving to Jewel before the paparazzi dispersed completely. His heart jumped into his throat every time he thought about what was about to happen.

“Mark,” he instructed. “Go get the girls. I’m going to call an Uber.” Mark jumped up immediately, making his way over to the group and squeezing himself in between Leven and Isabelle, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders. He said something and both girls laughed hysterically. 

Alex realized that he was actually staring at Isabelle instead of getting a car, so he quickly tore his eyes away from her, pulling up the Uber app on his phone and ordering an Uber Black. He caught Mark’s eye and tapped his watch, holding up five fingers. Mark nodded, starting to steer the girls away from their new friends and back to the group. 

“Girls here are much nicer when you have bottle service and a hot boyfriend,” Isabelle announced as she approached Alex, sitting down on his lap and hooking one arm around his neck. 

“You think I’m hot?”

“You’re not ugly, Alexander.” It was Leven who answered him, and he noticed that her fingers were entwined firmly with Mark’s. “And we aren’t blind.”

He winked at her before turning to get Nick up off the couch. “Come on, Nick. Car’s almost here.”

“Roll out, autobots!” he shrieked, and Alex closed his eyes, wishing that his brother could hold his booze like a normal person.

They made a last minute decision to have Nick escorted back upstairs to Alex’s apartment so that he could sleep off all the beer that was sloshing around in his stomach. He seemed cool with that, having gotten the redhead’s number and already muttering about pizza. “Just go right into Jackie’s room,” Alex told him. “She’ll act like she’s sleeping but she’s actually not and she definitely wants to help you order pizza.”

Isabelle hit him in the side. “She’s gonna kill you.”

“Oh, I can take her.”

Alex put the girls into the back of the black-on-black Escalade, Leven and Isabelle in the middle, Mark next to Leven, and Alex squeezing in next to Isabelle. Jack got in the front seat, turning around to stick his tongue out at Isabelle as they started moving. 

Mark was leaning close to Leven, whispering in her ear, and Jack was talking to the driver, so Alex took the chance to look down at Isabelle. “So… how do you want to do this?”

“You’re the boss,” she said. “What do you think?”

“There’s gonna be a ton of paparazzi right when we get there so I say that’s our best shot.”

“You got it.”

They spent the rest of the ten minute ride in comfortable silence, or at least Alex hoped it felt comfortable to her because his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. He was bouncing his knee up and down, knew he was doing it but couldn’t stop himself. He was positive that Mark and Leven were kissing on the other side of Isabelle, which was not helping him to calm down, and Jack was muttering something in the front seat about “third wheel.”

Before he knew it, they were pulling up outside Jewel, and through the tinted windows Alex could already see that paparazzi were swarming the car. Jackie had picked a good night for their big debut; Brody Jenner was guest DJ’ing.

Mark and Leven opened the car door on their side, the bright lights flashing into the car immediately as soon as they realized it was Alex’s group. The two pushed through the crowd of people, disappearing on the other side, Jack trailing them. Isabelle slid across the seat, grabbing Alex’s hand and squeezing it behind her as she stepped carefully out of the car.

He was blinded almost immediately, cameras shoved in his face, and he looked around frantically, trying to find somewhere they could go that was out of the way of the drive-up but still in public. He spotted a hole forming through the tangle of arms and legs and cameras, pulling Isabelle through it, up onto the sidewalk. The wave of paparazzi instantly turned, following the two of them, and Alex knew it was time.

Alex backed up against the wall of the building, pulling Isabelle up against him, one hand spanning her waist and the other in her hair, and he kissed her. Alex had kissed girls before, quite a few of them, but he knew immediately that none of them had been like this. He didn’t know if it was the flashes from the cameras or the fact that he was finally kissing her, but it felt like fireworks were exploding in his brain, the cries of “Alex!” and “Isabelle!” fading out as his lips moved over hers.

She played her part well, standing up on her tiptoes and grabbing the neck of his shirt to get even closer to him. He felt like his entire body was on fire, made even more intense by the fact that she was fully pressed up against him, moving against him as she slipped her tongue into his mouth.

Finally, she pulled back, grinning at him and backlit by dozens of camera flashes. They were both breathing hard, Alex still holding on to her waist, and he steered her through the doors, where they were greeted by the huge LED-lit staircase and their group of friends, all three of whom were clapping and wolf-whistling.

“That was something else,” Jack said, clapping Alex on the back.

“Shut up,” Alex said, sure that his ears were still burning red, shoving him in the shoulder. “Let’s just go upstairs and move on with our lives.”

They made their way up the glittering, light painted stairs, the sounds of the club coming down to meet them. “We’ve never been here before,” Leven said, following Mark up the stairs. 

“It’s an experience,” Jack said. Jewel was one of the most ridiculous, over the top clubs in Vegas, and Alex loved it. The inside of the club was all red velvet and bright blue lights, very luxurious and plush like you were in a diamond in a box, which was obviously what Jewel was going for. The main floor of the club was packed; Alex could see Brody Jenner at the DJ booth and both main floor bars were completely flooded with people.

“Alex!” A girl came up to him as soon as they made it onto the main floor of the club, bouncers already heading their way to stave off the crowd of people that had just noticed him. “We have the G.O.A.T VIP Suite all ready for you.” 

“Thank you, Natalie,” he said gratefully, needing at least three seconds of peace and quiet after the shitshow that had just gone on outside. He followed her up the stairs to the mezzanine level of the club. He had been in the G.O.A.T. suite a couple of times before, usually when he had a girl to impress, but Jackie must have set it up for them tonight. It was the athlete suite, baseball and basketball and football jerseys all over the wall.

“Oh my God,” Isabelle said as they walked into the sprawling room, couches and a private bar and a window looking out at the club floor spread out in front of them. Alex realized quickly that she wasn’t looking at any of that. “That’s you.”

Oh, yeah, and there was a giant, almost life-sized picture of Alex winning the middleweight championship, shirtless, blood all over his face, silent roar coming out of his mouth, belt held up over his head. 

“Don’t look at that, Iz,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. She had never seen him fight before, and until now, those parts of his life had been completely separate. Obviously, he knew that wasn’t a permanent thing, especially not with the Sports Illustrated feature coming up, but them coming together in this way was so sudden that he hadn’t had a chance to prepare himself for it.

“Shut up,” she said, smacking him in the stomach as he walked up behind her. “You’re a G.O.A.T. Plus you look really hot.”

“So blood’s your thing, huh?”

“Oh, of course. It’s definitely not the abs everywhere.”

The bottle girls started coming in, most of them greeting Alex by name as they poured drinks for everyone. Aex hadn’t drank much at Marquee, wanting to keep his wits about him, but now that the kiss was over, he felt like he could just have fun and not worry about anything, for the first time in a long time. 

Jack, Leven, and Isabelle went down to the main bar, Leven and Isabelle because they said they needed to get the full experience and Jack to troll for some girls, leaving Mark and Alex up in the suite. Alex immediately punched Mark in the arm once the door had closed behind them.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“I saw you in the car! What in the fresh hell?”

“To what are you referring?” Mark asked innocently, earning himself another punch in the arm. “Listen, I think I really like her.”

“You always think that.”

“Yeah, but I really mean it that time.”

Alex sighed, his head filled with the thought that he couldn’t be with this girl that he really wanted to be with. He couldn’t do that to Mark too. “Just don’t make it weird.”

“I would never!”

They sat there together, drinking and trying to catch a glimpse of their girls through the big window. “You really like her, huh?” Mark asked, his Crown and Coke tilting dangerously. Alex grabbed it, setting it down on the table in front of them. 

He didn’t think he was drunk, but it was clear as the words flowed out of his mouth that he was (and that he was a whole lot drunker than he realized). “Yeah. I do.”

“You should go for it.”

“I can’t. There’s a contract.”

“Does it say that in the contract?”

“Well, no. But if we start doing stuff on a personal level, then I’m essentially paying for it. Which gets complicated as soon as sex is involved.”

“I guess so. But you haven’t dated anyone in five years, for the entire time that I’ve known you. Maybe it’s time to get back on that horse.”

Alex opened his mouth to respond when the door to the suite burst open, and Jack came in surrounded by a whole group of girls. Alex was already having trouble focusing his eyesight, so he couldn’t really see any of the girls, just saw Isabelle fly through the middle of the group, skidding around the side of the couch on her heels and throwing herself onto Alex’s lap, one leg on either side of him.

“Hey,” he said, pushing her back to try to look at her face. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer, instead kissing him so blatantly that it took him by surprise. For a swift second, he just sat there, her hands moving over his chest, sliding up to his face. But it didn’t take long for him to fall into it, his entire body lighting up underneath her as she moved against him. Her hair had come out of her bun, falling loose down her back, and he fisted one hand in it, the other traveling down her back and dangerously close to the bottom of her dress. 

She pulled back, shifting so that she was between him and the door, her hair falling over his shoulder as she kissed his neck. “Jesus Christ, Iz,” he breathed into her ear as she sucked on his neck so hard he was sure he would have a completely unexplainable hickey pop up there by tomorrow morning. His skin felt like it was fizzing under her mouth, and he gripped her hips, trying to bring himself back down to earth.

“Don’t look over there,” she whispered, grazing his ear with her teeth. “But Kat is over there with Jack.”

Alex resisted every urge to whip his head around and look behind him, instead focusing on the girl straddling him. So she hadn’t suddenly realized she wanted him too. That was disappointing.

“Get a room!” Leven yelled, throwing a drink stirrer in their direction, clearly having been briefed on the situation, and Alex could only assume that since Mark wasn’t sitting next to him asking a million questions she had told him also. Jack seemed to be the only one in the dark, and there was no way to let him in on what was happening with also having to face Kat.

After a few more moments, Isabelle sat back. “We should get out of here.”

“I need a second.”

“Why?”

‘Iz.” He shot her a look.

“Oh. Duh.” She rolled off his lap onto the couch between him and Mark, and Alex leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and trying to think of something depressing. Isabelle leaned across him, whispering something to Mark and effectively keeping Kat as far away from them as possible. Within a few seconds, Alex was good to go, and she yanked him out of the room, screaming goodbye to the three still left.

“What the hell happened?” he hissed to her as they ran down the stairs and through the main floor of the club, dodging drunk guys and dancing girls.

“I’ll tell you in the car!” she threw back over her shoulder. “We’ve just gotta get out of here.”

An Uber Black Mercedes was already waiting for them - that girl took good care of him. Jackie would be impressed. “Okay, so.” Isabelle started explaining the second the door was closed. “We were downstairs, right? And Leven and I were just getting a drink, and Jack was lurking as he always does. And he finds this group of girls and he says hey, can I bring them up to the suite? And Leven says it’s not my suite, go ask Alex, and they end up almost getting in a fight at the bar because they’re both drunk and dumb at this point.”

Alex nodded along, trying to keep up, his alcohol soaked brain making the task a little more difficult.

“So Jack starts bringing them upstairs and I’m still waiting for my drink when I see Kat like right in the middle of them. Honestly, thank God they ran that article with the picture of the two of you the other day because otherwise I never would have known what she looked like. So I abandoned my drink and Leven too, who thankfully caught on immediately, and tried to beat them upstairs.”

“Well, you sure did.”

“I didn’t really have a plan obviously, so I just did the first thing that came into my brain.”

Alex sat back. “So she didn’t know I was up there?”

“I don’t think so. Just a happy coincidence.”

“Yeah, super happy.”

You never really realized how drunk you were until you sat down in the car on the way home, and it was really starting to hit Alex. He had no idea how Isabelle was still standing; she was much smaller than him and had just as much to drink, if not more since she was actually drinking at Marquee. She seemed fine until they got out of the car outside of Alex’s building and she was suddenly stumbling, grabbing his arm as she leaned down and pulled her heels off.

“Ah. Much better.” She was still stumbling, and Alex grabbed her around the waist, hoisting her upright as they made their way through the fancy lobby, getting onto the penthouse elevator.

The apartment was dark, Nick passed out on the couch and a note from Jackie on the counter that said “Nick ate and you can go fuck yourself!” Alex grinned when he saw it, sticking it to the fridge with a magnet. Isabelle leaned against the counter, dropping her shoes on the floor with a dull thump.

“Come on, Iz. Let’s get you to bed.”

They made it up the stairs okay, but instead of going to her room, Isabelle peeled away from him, falling into his bed before he could stop her. “Iz,” he whispered, not wanting to wake Jackie up since he had already put her through it tonight sending a drunk Nick back to her. “What are you doing?”

“Wanna be with you,” she slurred, and his heart jumped even though he knew she just meant she wanted to stay in his room. 

“Okay,” he said, looking around. “Let me get you a t-shirt.”

He rummaged in his drawers, pulling out a Camp Valhalla t-shirt and tossing it to her, keeping his back turned while she changed. Once he was in sweatpants, his shirt and jeans discarded on the floor, he crawled into bed beside her, careful not to touch her. 

They had slept together before; Isabelle had fallen asleep in his bed at least twice a week since she had moved in. But this time was different; he had touched her now, felt her move against him, knew what it was like to kiss her, and every muscle in his body was aching to reach out and touch her.

“Alex,” Isabelle said softly, and he turned towards her. She was lying on her side, staring at him. 

“Yeah?” He rolled over onto his side too, propping his head up with his hand.

“How come you need me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… you could date anyone you want. How come you need to fake it?”

Alex sighed, swallowing hard. “It’s a long story.”

She reached out, running her fingers down his chest and sending a lightning bolt to his heart. “We have time.”

“I just… I haven’t dated anyone since I was twenty-two. It ended when I moved out here, and it… it broke my heart, I guess. I’ve stayed away from it on purpose. And then when I started making money, all the girls I was around cared about Alex the fighter or Alex with the nice apartment or Alex with the cars. I couldn’t find anyone who just cared about me as Alex.”

“I care about Alex,” she whispered. In the blink of an eye, she rolled over on top of him, the same way she had at the club. He reached out, putting his hands on her bare legs, looking up at her. It was pitch black in the room, shutters down and TV off, so he couldn’t see her face, couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“I know, Iz.” He reached up, putting his hand behind her neck, pulling her down towards him even as his brain told him he shouldn’t, that there was no one here to see it so there was no point. 

Her lips were soft over his, and she tasted like champagne and chocolate. She moved her hands down his chest, coming to rest on his stomach, which he reflexively clenched under her fingers. “Alex,” she whispered into his mouth. 

“Yeah?”

“We can’t.”

He closed his eyes, pulling back, knowing that he had just done the one thing he promised himself he wouldn’t do. “I know. I know.”


	6. go where we can't be found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i just wanna go, be alone in my hotel  
> / we can hit the road, we can go where we can't be found  
> / i just wanna go, drivin' slow, take a chance on me  
> / late night reminiscin', shut your mouth, just kiss me  
> / i see lightning in your eyes  
> drunk enough to say that i love you by plvtinum

Jackie Emerson  
7:02 AM  
I hear sex jams, am I allowed to come out?

Jackie Emerson  
7:03 AM  
Wait oh my god what? Who’s here??

Alexander Ludwig  
7:03 AM  
No one. I’m just making some oatmeal and  
I’m really feeling it.

 Jackie opened the door to her office, sticking her head out and gesturing to Alex. “What?” he asked her loudly, knowing she was being intentionally quiet. “What do you want?”

“Shut up!” she hissed at him. “Come here!”

He grabbed his oatmeal off the stove, turning off his Spotify playlist. Jackie knew him far too well if she knew that was the same playlist he used when he had a girl over. He meandered into her office, and she shut the door softly behind him, gesturing for him to sit down.

“How did last night go?”

He took a giant bite of oatmeal, regretting it the second he burned his tongue. Jackie rolled her eyes, holding her garbage can out to him so he could spit into it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Thanks.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Alex. Now tell me about last night.”

Alex sat his bowl down on the side of her desk, making sure to keep it as far away from her papers as possible, not wanting to repeat the unfortunate (Jackie would call it disastrous) Grape Juice Incident.

“I saw your Instagram pictures,” Jackie said. “Those were good. Really good. Her idea, I assume?”

“Hey, I have good ideas too.”

“Sure you do, but that was all Isabelle.”

“Are we gonna sit here and pretend like you don’t know everything that happened?”

Jackie smiled, turning her computer screen towards him. He leaned forward, scooting his chair so he could see it clearly. There was an E! News story with a couple of pictures, the two of them getting out of the car, the two of them kissing up against the wall, the two of them walking into the club, Alex holding the door open.

“It was some kiss, huh?” She smirked at him.

“How would you know, Jackie?” Alex refused to make eye contact with her, grabbing his bowl again. “It’s a picture.”

“Oh no.” Jackie typed something into the search bar. “There’s video on TMZ.”

“Of course there is.” He watched it on the screen, Jackie blessedly turning the volume down. “Okay, okay.” He hadn’t realized how long the kiss had actually gone on for. “I get the picture.”

Jackie turned it off, moving her monitor back. He shoved more oatmeal into his mouth, making sure to blow on it this time. “You really aren’t gonna tell me anything, are you?”

There was no way he would be able to keep all of it from Jackie, and he had learned his lesson from the last time. “Well, Kat was there.” Jackie spit coffee out all over her desk, Alex pushing his chair back instinctively. “Ew, Jac, what the fuck?”

She just sat there, her mouth hanging open. “What did you say?”

“Yeah, she was at Jewel and Jack accidentally brought her up to the suite because he had no idea it was her. Thankfully, Isabelle did and she took care of it.”

“Took care of it how?”

Alex turned his head, showing Jackie the giant bruise Isabelle had sucked into his neck. Jackie snorted. “Yeah. She didn’t say anything to me and then we ran out of there so I think it’s been handled.”

“Well, good.” Jackie sat back, mopping up coffee with a tissue. “And how are you doing with the whole thing?”

“I’m fine. Why? Did someone say something to you?”

“I’m not an idiot, Alex, and I have two eyeballs in my damn head. I see how you look at her.”

Alex looked behind him, making sure the door was firmly shut. “Okay, fine. I like her. But believe me, I am well aware that there’s a contract, and that doing anything with her would be inappropriate.”

“I wrote the damn contract. I know what it says. And I can assure you that you can do whatever you want, and I will work around it. That’s my job. That’s what I’ve been doing for you for five years.”

“So you’re saying…”

“If you want to date her, then date her.”

That would have been such a game-changer except… “I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Alex scraped the bottom of his bowl with the spoon, getting the last bit of oatmeal out of it. “I kissed her last night. After we got home. In my bed. And she wasn’t into it.”

It was very rare that he managed to render Jackie speechless. She kneaded her temples with her fingers.

“Yeah,” he continued. “So even if it is possible, it’s not going to happen.”

Jackie got up, coming around her desk and sitting on Alex’s lap, hooking her arms around him and resting her forehead against his neck. “Are you okay?”

He sat there for a few moments, listening to the sound of her breathing against him. “I’m good, Jackie. It’s just a crush. It will go away.”

Even Alex knew: it wasn’t and it wouldn’t.

* * *

Dayo made the executive decision to close down the gym for Sports Illustrated day so there weren’t dozens of people there watching Alex be photographed. He felt bad about it at first, knowing there were a lot of other guys to needed to train, but the second he got there he realized it had been a good decision. There were lights and cameras and people everywhere, and it would have been a disaster any other way.

He dropped his bag in Dayo’s office, where Dayo was sitting with Sports Illustrated’s art director, Lia. She jumped up as soon as he walked in, shaking his hand and introducing herself. “If you need anything today, just let me know, or grab any one of the thousand people walking around. We’re really excited to be working with you.”

Alex liked her immediately, his nerves subsiding. He wasn’t used to being in the spotlight like this. Ninety-five percent of his life was spent in this gym, working out by himself. It was only those two or three weeks a year where people paid attention to him, those nights he fought someone under the lights. Everything else stayed in the dark, and that was how he had always liked it.

“Is your girlfriend going to be here?” Lia asked.

“Any minute now,” Alex said. He hadn’t slept much the night before, had been up since four o’clock in the morning, downed a bunch of coffee, and sat on the end of Jackie’s bed until she woke up.

He had been avoiding Isabelle a little bit over the last couple of days, nothing so obvious that she would notice it, but just enough to try to get his feelings in check. He felt like he was doing better, had pushed the kiss out of his mind and was ready to move on with his life. He had a fight to get ready for, and he couldn’t forget that fact just because there was a pretty girl living in his house and pretending to be his girlfriend.

Almost as if on cue, Isabelle rushed into the gym, looking around for Alex. It was her first time here, and Alex felt like he was seeing it through her eyes, the same way he had seen it for the first time.

There were windows and mirrors everywhere, because Alex had wanted as much natural light in the gym as possible. Back in Iowa, he used to work out in the basement of his parents’ house because it had a concrete floor and he could throw weights around without his dad getting mad. But it was claustrophobic and tiny and he kept scraping his knuckles on the wall when he worked out with the bag. He wanted something as different from that as he could get.

There were framed posters of him and Dayo and other Camp Valhalla fighters everywhere, pictures of him with his fellow fighters: Cody Garbrandt, Urijah Faber, Nick Diaz. The weights were all spread out in one corner, mats in another, treadmills by the windows, bags up against the wall, the huge ring sprawled across the middle of the gym, and the whole thing was made even more crazy by the amount of people milling around waiting for him.

“Hi baby,” Isabelle chirped, coming up to him and kissing him on the cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world, wrapping her fingers around his. She was wearing ripped jeans and a Camp Valhalla sweatshirt that Jackie had had rush-printed and messengered over to the house the night before. She held her other hand out to Lia, smiling like this was the most normal thing in the world.

“So here’s the plan for today,” Lia told them, flipping her long, blonde hair over her shoulder. “We’ll start off taking photographs, since that will take the longest amount of time and the most production. Over lunch, we’ll have you sit down with one of our writers and do an interview. We’ll have camera crews around until we’re done, and we’ll have a behind-the-scenes video up on our YouTube channel when the article comes out. And Isabelle, we would love to have you sit down with someone as well, tell us more about what Alex is like when he’s not at the gym.”

Alex knew that Jackie had prepped Isabelle for this at length over the weekend, but it still made him nervous. They could ask her anything.

“Sounds good,” Isabelle said smoothly, squeezing Alex’s hand, and he knew she was telling him subliminally that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

“Did you bring your belt, Alex?”

“Oh, yeah. I left it in my car.”

Isabelle snorted behind him. “I’ll go grab it for you.” She fished in his pocket for his keys, pulling them out and pushing her way through the crowd of people and out the door to where his car of the day was parked right outside the gym doors.

They got Alex in the makeup chair pretty quickly, putting crap all over his face and making him sneeze a few times, someone else fussing over his hair at the same time, the two moving in tandem around each other. He blushed as the makeup artist leaned down over his neck, running her hand over the hickey that was still there.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, laughing as she saw his face. Isabelle, for her part, didn’t look embarrassed at all. The makeup artist slapped a few products on top of it, the bruise disappearing under her touch.

Isabelle sat there next to him, legs crossed, phone in her hand, taking pictures of him for her Snapchat and Instagram story. All weekend, she had been posting pictures of him: a selfie of the two of them eating breakfast together, a boomerang of Alex doing a pool workout, a mirror picture in Alex’s bathroom, her hair piled up on her head and tongue stuck out as Alex brushed his teeth. If they didn’t look enough like a real couple before, they sure did now.

As soon as he was done in the chair, he disappeared into the locker room to get dressed, pulling on his official UFC shorts and t-shirt, trying not to mess up his hair in the process. Lia was waiting for him when he stepped out.

“Where do you want me?”

“Let’s start in the ring,” she said. “Shirt off please.”

He paused, stripping his shirt off, sure that he hadn’t managed to keep his hair intact this time. Lia walked him over to the ring, and he ducked under one of the ropes. “Can we bring the belt in?” she called.

One of the assistants brought it over, handing it through the ropes to Alex. Every time he looked at this thing, huge and gold and heavy, it reminded him that this wasn’t just a dream, that he wasn’t a twenty year old kid in a basement in Iowa anymore. He had made it.

Alex knew he should have the belt displayed in his house; Jackie kept trying to convince him to put it over the fireplace in the living room or in his office, but he couldn’t do it. If he put it up somewhere, if he made a permanent spot for it in his house, then what would happen if he lost it?

Isabelle made faces at him as a couple of the makeup artists came through the ropes, getting ready to rub oil on his chest and back so it would be shiny in the pictures. This is ridiculous, Alex thought, knowing he couldn’t make eye contact with Isabelle or he would lose it. Jackie had showed up at some point too, handing Isabelle a cup of coffee and smirking at him. These women were going to make him crazy.

He shifted the belt hanging over his arm, flexing his shoulders. His bad shoulder had felt great lately, but it still twinged every now and then. He had a Viking shield tattooed over that shoulder, put there for protection, the letters Valhalla inked in dark around it.

Alex had designed his entire team around Vikings mythology. Valhalla was the hall of slain warriors, where you went when you died, and Alex’s motto for his entire fighting career was “Victory or Valhalla.” He had another giant tattoo of a bear on his chest, his fight name Ironside underneath it, Ironside representing resilience and endurance. Alex was going to win or he was going to die trying.

The girls stepped back, ducking back underneath the ropes. “We got ahold of Dana last night,” he overheard Lia saying to Jackie, and he cocked his head to the side, listening. “He had some really great things to say.”

“Can you tell us one of them?” Isabelle asked, shooting a wink at Alex, fully knowing that he was listening in.

Lia flipped through a notebook, turning the pages until she found what she was looking for. “He said, and I quote: ‘Alex is the best conditioned male fighter we currently have in the UFC, and he has heavy hands. That’s why he’s out here finishing fights. He can take someone down to the ground and submit them, or he can knock them out. Alex’s fights do not go to decision. Period.’”

“Wow,” Jackie said, sitting back. “That’s…”

“High praise,” Isabelle finished.

“Very.”

Alex ducked his head, turning his back to the women so they wouldn’t see the stupid look on his face. His relationship with Dana White was special for a lot of reasons. For one, Dana was the first person besides Jackie who really looked at him and saw potential. For another, he took the place in a lot of ways of the father that Alex never had.

Alex never really knew his father; he was in and out for the first five years of Alex’s life, fathering the twins and Alex’s youngest sister. After Sophia was born, he split, and they never saw him again. He had tried to come back once, after Alex had started in the UFC and was winning fights, after his name was on ESPN all the time and he was making money. He had called Alex’s mom who in turn had called Alex, and then Jackie when Alex refused to have the conversation.

“I’m not calling him back,” Alex told Jackie firmly. They were still living in that crappy little house where Alex was teaching classes at the gym every morning and serving at night, just so they could pay their rent. He was doing push ups in the postage-stamp backyard, a heavy chain that he had talked off some guy at a construction site draped across his back for extra resistance.

Jackie sat down on the hot pavement, crossing her legs and pushing her sunglasses down over her eyes. She sat out here every day while Alex worked out so that he would have some company, usually with a stack of papers and a vodka lemonade. Today she just had her cell phone clutched in her hand. Alex just kept doing push ups, back slick with sweat, waiting for her to say something.

“You don’t have to call him back,” she said finally. “I just promised your mom I would pass along the message.”

“He wants money.”

Jackie paused. “I’m sure.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“She didn’t say exactly. Just that he was… asking about you.”

“His ass must be jealous of the shit that comes out of his mouth.”

“I know.”

Alex dropped to the ground, pushing off the chain and rolling onto his back, throwing his arm over his eyes. Sweat instantly pooled on the concrete patio beneath him. “What do you think I should do?”

“I think you should do whatever you want.”

“That’s a cop out answer.”

Alex and Jackie had known each other for a year now, been living in extremely close, extremely cramped quarters the entire time. She knew everything about him: what kept him up at night, what shampoo he used, that he called his sisters every Wednesday at nine o’clock their time and that he missed his brother more than anything. They had one bedroom, alternated sleeping in the bed or on the couch, and they shared a car, Jackie picking Alex up late from the restaurant if she needed it while he was working. He was finally starting to make money; they probably didn’t need to live in this house anymore and they could definitely afford to buy another car, but he just wasn’t ready. He needed to be prepared if it all fell apart.

“No, I don’t think you should.” Jackie’s tone was final. “He’s not really your dad. He’s definitely not your family. Your family are the ones who have been there for you when things are bad, not just when your star is on the rise.”

“Like you.” Alex stuck his tongue out at her, rolling over onto his stomach.

“I’m just here for the fifteen percent.”

“Like hell.”

Jackie laughed and they never talked about his dad ever again, but whenever he thought about his dad, he really thought about Jackie, the real reason he was who he was.

Once the photoshoot got underway, it moved quickly, the photographer moving around Alex, telling him to move his face a little to the right or that he was doing good, stay just like that. Lia kept jumping in and out, adjusting things, suggesting new poses. They even had that old, beat up chain that Alex used to do push ups with; Jackie must have kept it when they moved out of that shitty house. She was sentimental like that.

He could see the writers wandering around the gym, talking to Dayo and Jackie and Isabelle, pulling them off to the side one by one and sitting down with them. The video cameras had been circling since the morning had begun, and he honestly couldn’t wait for this entire day to be over so they could move on with their lives. He was so not cut out for this.

Finally, after what felt like hours and hours, they told him they were done taking photos and that he could put his clothes back on. Isabelle was waiting for him when he got out of the locker room, still yanking his shirt over his head.

“Here, sweetie,” she said, handing him a salad in a plastic container, and he could see a videographer coming up behind her, circling them silently.

“Thank you.” He took it, his hand brushing hers, sending shocks through his fingers.

“I even shook it for you.”

He laughed, knowing that she thought the way he shook his salads up was the dumbest thing. “What now?”

“I think they’re waiting for you to do your interview.” She pointed to where Lia was sitting with one of the writers inside Dayo’s office. “Knock ‘em dead, baby.” She slapped him in the butt as he walked off; she was definitely going to pay for that later.

* * *

“I know you’re some big star now, but you do still have to train, you know.”

“Shut up, Dayo.”

Dayo finished wrapping his hands, handing Alex his gloves. “You all set?”

Alex tightened the Velcro with his teeth. “What’s the plan for today?”

“I think we should just low-contact spar. I don’t want to overdo it and tweak your shoulder, especially since it’s been so much better lately.”

Isabelle had never seen Alex fight before, and even though this was what he had been doing for his entire life, it made him a little self-conscious. It was one thing for her to know what he did for work and another to see him actually do it. He knew Dayo wasn’t going to go easy on him.

“Okay.” He took a couple of deep breaths, following Dayo into the ring, and saw Nick sit down by Isabelle on one of the benches surrounding the octagon.

Alex was one of the best strikers in the UFC. He could stand and box with anyone; he had really heavy hands and had dropped people seconds into a fight with one right hook. His ground game, on the other hand, had always been weaker. That’s why Dayo had brought Mark on years ago; Mark was a fantastic grappler, had trained with Team Alpha Male and learned everything he knew from Urijah Faber, bringing all of that knowledge to Camp Valhalla when Dayo recruited him.

Dominic Nicholas was a grappler, and they had been focusing a lot on Alex’s ground game over the last few months, ever since he got the call about the fight. “You can’t let him get behind you,” Dayo said over and over. “He’ll get on your back and wear you down. Just remember that you have a better chance of knocking him down if you stay on your feet than he does of holding you down for the entire fight.”

“Alright,” Dayo said once they were in the center of the ring, Alex facing him. “Low contact, remember? If you actually hit me, I will hit you back.”

The workout went quickly, Alex darting around Dayo and throwing punches and kicks and a couple of takedowns. He could hear Nick and Isabelle talking, knew Nick was explaining things to her as they went. Mark was standing next to the ring, elbows perched on the mat, yelling things to Alex. If the fight went as well as his training was going, he had nothing to worry about, and he was really thankful to have all of these people in his corner.

Dayo helped Alex up off the mat when they were done. “Take it easy for the rest of the day,” he said. “You can swim, but no lifting. You need to give your shoulder a little bit of a rest.” Alex opened his mouth, but Dayo cut him off before he could say anything. “Nope. I don’t want to hear it. We start fight camp three weeks from today, and we don’t want to spend the time trying to nurse you back to health.”

Alex had torn his shoulder for the first time years ago, back when he used to wrestle in high school. It had plagued him ever since, and it had torn it once more during his professional career. Thankfully, the surgery was a quick fix, and as long as he paid attention to it and backed off when it started to ache, he would be good.

“Fine.” Alex rolled his eyes.

“Isabelle!” Dayo said, leaning over the ropes. She skipped up to the side of the ring. “I’m counting on you tonight. Make sure he takes the night off.”

“You know he doesn’t listen to me,” she said.

“Oh please!” Mark butted in. “You’re the only one he listens to.” God, Mark was lucky he was out of Alex’s reach.

“Can I ride back with you?” Isabelle asked him. “I came with Jackie, and she had to run off.”

“Yeah, of course.” He grabbed his bag, hovering around Dayo’s office door until he physically pushed Alex out of the gym. The closer they got to the fight, the more neurotic Alex was going to get. Dayo knew this, and he always had to put Alex on a strict schedule to make sure he wasn’t jumping on the treadmill at two in the morning or lifting three times a day. Normally Jackie was the one assigned to watch him, but he assumed this time those duties would be split between her and Isabelle.

Alex helped Isabelle up into the G-Wagon, shutting the door behind her. “How do you feel?” she asked, turning to him as soon as he got in.

“That was… overwhelming.”

“But great, right?” Her face was glowing, and she was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “You’re like… a really big deal.”

“Not even.” He started the car, bracing his arm on the back of her seat as he looked behind him, backing out of the spot. “It’s not like that.”

“Nick told me I should watch your last fight so I know what to expect on Fight Night.”

Alex felt a jolt of nervous energy go through him at the thought of her watching that. “Yeah, I think we have it recorded.” He pulled out onto the main road, flicking his blinker on.

“So you brought your brother out here to work with you?”

“Yeah.” Alex glanced over at her, her foot propped up on the seat, arms hugging her knee. She was so goddamn interested in everything he had to say, and that blew his mind. “A few years ago. He was back in Iowa and he had just floated around since graduating high school and didn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground, much less had any idea what he wanted to do.”

“Does he fight too?”

“He was a state champion wrestler, but he never got into MMA. It’s nice to have him out here, both to coach me and just to have some family around.”

“Jackie told me you have two sisters.”

“Yeah, Natalie, she’s Nick’s twin, and Sophia, the youngest.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re both at Dartmouth. Natalie is about to graduate.”

“Oh, okay. So they got the brains of the family.”

Alex laughed. “Something like that.”

“Will they be here for Fight Night?”

“Yes, both of them. And my mom.”

She didn’t ask about his dad, which made Alex think that Jackie must have prepped her on Alex’s family a little bit, what to expect and what to absolutely under no circumstances ask about.

“Well, I’m excited to meet them.” She sat back, looking out the window as they pulled into the underground garage of the building, the doors shutting behind them and sending the inside of the car into a soft darkness.

“It was cool seeing you do all that stuff today,” she said once he had turned the car off, reaching between them in the backseat for his bag and the belt. He paused mid-grab, stopping with his arm on the back of her seat.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She reached up grabbing his fingers, and Alex was again struck by a wave of confusion. It felt like the more he pulled away, tried to keep his distance, tried to do the right thing and make things as uncomplicated as possible, she was there to pull him closer. He didn’t understand her, and he was starting to think he never would. “It’s like… I knew intellectually that you do this for a living, but it’s not like I understood at all. And now I got to see it and it’s like getting to know you in a whole new way, seeing you do something you really love and are really good at.”

She was leaning closer to him over the console, and his head was starting to swim. Who knew what would have happened if his arm hadn’t slipped off the top of the steering wheel, his elbow hitting the horn and scaring the bejesus out of both of them, breaking the trance they had put themselves in.

* * *

The last few Thanksgivings had been big affairs, to say the least. Angelo started cooking days before, preparing for the madness. Dayo always showed up early; Mark always showed up late. Half the time Nick brought some random girl he had just started dating and they would probably never see again. Jackie got really dressed up but always ended up in sweatpants by dessert. Sometimes his mom or the girls (or if he was really lucky, all three of them) came into town if he hadn’t seen them in a while.

This year would be even crazier than normal. All the usual suspects were coming, including Leven, Jack, and of course, Isabelle. She told him that she usually went back to Atlanta to see her parents, but that her sister couldn’t come back from Paris this year and it was a long ways to go for just a couple of days. He had a twinge of hope that she just might just want to be with him instead.

Just like always, Dayo showed up fifteen minutes early, not even visible when the elevator doors opened due to the giant armload of flowers he was carrying. Alex was sitting at the kitchen counter, trying to sneak bites of mashed potato when Angelo wasn’t looking, and he just stared at Dayo, eyes narrowed. “What in the hell are you doing?”

Dayo ignored him completely, peeking around the flowers for Jackie, who came out of her office in a short maroon dress and high boots, her hair on top of her head. “For me?” she said, taking them from Dayo and smelling them. “They’re gorgeous.”

Dayo mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “just like you,” and Alex mimed throwing up in the background, quickly turning around once they looked in his direction. Isabelle sitting next to him, smirked, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Can we help you?” Jackie said icily.

“Go on with you, bro,” Alex said, waving a hand in her direction and scooping a fingerful of mashed potatoes out of the bowl, Angelo smacking his hand with a wooden spoon. “Um, ow!”

“If I see you stick your finger in one more bowl, you’re out of my kitchen,” Angelo told him, pointing the spoon at him. “Isabelle, keep your man under control.”

She raised her hands placatingly. “Would if I could!”

She grabbed Alex’s arm, pulling him off the stool and out of the kitchen. “Where are we going?” he whined, shooting Angelo a look over his shoulder.

“Away from the kitchen,” she said, opening the door to the balcony and pushing him out. “I don’t want you to start a fight before we get turkey.”

“How about after?”

“After is fine. As long as I get some turkey.”

“Isabelle, it’s freezing out here.”

She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “It’s like fifty degrees. You’re from Iowa for fuck’s sake.” She had a point.

Alex rested his arms on the ledge, looking down at the street below them, almost completely deserted. He could hear sounds floating up from the restaurant below them. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, not looking at her.

“What was that?”

“You heard me.” He looked over at Isabelle, and she was laughing. “It’s nice. Feels normal.” She came up next to him, grabbing his arm and putting it over her shoulders.

“Like a family.”

“Yeah. Like a family.”

They stayed like that for a while until they heard a knock on the glass door, turning to see Mark and Jack standing there. “Come on!” Mark yelled. “We’re getting hungry.”

Alex stepped back from Isabelle, grabbing the door handle which wasn’t turning. “Ah-ha,” the two of them cackled.

“You guys are nine years old.”

“I would be nicer to us since you are the one locked on the balcony.” Jack had a plate in his hand already, loaded high with mashed potatoes, and Alex was seriously considering how much force he would need to break through the window when Jackie came along, pushing the two of them away and unlocking the door.

“Immature,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Alex.

“Um, I didn’t do that. Also, Dayo has lipstick on his collar.”

She whipped around to look at Dayo, who was talking to Leven in the living room, a drink in his hand and collar definitely clean. “Ha. Gotcha.”

“Alexander Ludwig, you are such a piece of-”

“Dinner!” Angelo called, cutting Jackie off just in time.

There was more food than the nine of them could ever finish, completely filling the giant dining room table which seemed to be almost groaning under its weight: stuffing, bread pudding, rolls, cranberry sauce (“This is a fresh cranberry sauce house, damn it. It’s who we are.” “But I like the shape it makes when it comes out of the can.” “So help me, Alex.”), corn on the cob, green bean casserole, tater tots, a giant turkey glistening with herb butter, and of course, piles of mashed potatoes.

It was always a bummer when Alex fought a Christmas or New Year’s Eve fight, because there was no way to have a real no holds barred Thanksgiving if he wanted to make weight. But he had realized that as long as he didn’t eat the bread, he could still have as many mashed potatoes as he wanted and be okay.

“Holy shit,” Isabelle said, sitting down next to Alex. “I have never seen so much food in my life.” Angelo, at the end of the table with Jackie and Dayo (what Mark called the adult section of the table), smiled at her.

“Alex, do you want to say something?” Jackie asked, splashing a little more wine into her glass.

Alex glanced around the table, everyone looking at him expectantly. “Um, yeah, sure.” He grabbed his water glass. “It’s been… one hell of a year for us, and I have all of you to thank for that. I’m really grateful that I have such kick-ass people in my life.” He looked down at Isabelle, who was smiling up at him. “Thank you all for coming today, and cheers to you all.”

Everyone lifted their glasses, clinking them with the person closest to them, and the glasses were barely back down on the table when Mark and Nick lunged for the food, starting to load up their plates.

Twenty minutes later, they were all in a food coma except Jackie, who was cleaning up as usual. “Jackie,” Alex called from where he was lying flat on his back on the huge couch in the living room, Isabelle curled up next to him, her head on his chest. “Can you not do that? You’re making me feel inferior.”

“Just let me clean a little bit,” she yelled back. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

“I’m thanking you now. I’m just saying, I can do it later.”

“I would bet money that you wouldn’t know where to put away a serving bowl in this kitchen.” He was silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You know what we should do?” Isabelle asked him, propping her sharp little chin on his chest.

“What’s that?”

“Watch your last fight.”

Alex was about to protest, but Nick and Mark sat up from where they were sprawled on the floor. “That’s a great idea, Fuhrman. Alex, where’s the remote?”

He was about to protest, but changed his mind when he saw the look on Isabelle’s face.

“I’ve got it,” Jackie said, hopping over the back of the couch, sitting on Alex’s legs. Big surprise - her dress was gone and she was wearing a pair of Camp Valhalla sweatpants. She grabbed the remote from the box on the coffee table, turning the TV on.

“What are we watching?” Dayo asked, strolling in.

“Nothing,” Alex groaned. “We can all just disperse to take a nap.”

“No one is dispersing,” Isabelle said, sitting up and scooting towards the arm of the couch, resting Alex’s head on her lap. She too had changed from her fancy dress into yoga pants and one of Alex’s t-shirts from high school that he refused to get rid of because they were so soft. She liked to sleep in them and had amassed about fifteen in her room. “We’re gonna watch your fight.”

“Oh, the Whittaker fight?” Dayo sat down on Jackie’s other side, essentially pinning Alex in. “Sick, turn it on.”

Leven and Jack were sprawled on the other couch, and Alex was completely surrounded by people who would never in a million years listen to him. “Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Jackie clicked what seemed like every button on the remote; she had never known how to work the entertainment system no matter how many times Alex tried to teach her. Eventually, Mark ripped the remote out of her hand, pulling up the menu and navigating to UFC 221, Alex’s last fight back in February.

Ludwig vs. Whittaker had been the title fight, Alex defending his middleweight championship. Robert Whittaker was a fighter out of New Zealand, and was pound-for-pound one of the best fighters in the world. As the official weigh-in started to play on the screen, Alex remembered very vividly that this was the most nervous he had ever been for a fight in all of his career, because if anyone had the power to take the belt away from him it was Whittaker.

Alex won his first seven fights in the UFC. He could still remember the day Dana called to offer him the title fight, pitting him against Yoel Romero, a Southpaw Cuban fighter. Romero had ten years on him, but had been the reigning middleweight champion since Alex could remember. Alex was sure that it was the closest he would ever come to a legend. Romero had won Fight of the Night four times in his UFC career.

It was the hardest fight Alex had ever had. By the third fight, he could barely breathe, his ribs on fire and blood dripping down the back of his throat. “You’re a brawler,” Dayo was screaming at him in the corner as his cutman tried to stop the blood coming from the gash in Alex’s eyebrow. “You have to go in there like you’re the baddest motherfucker on the planet. He’s trying to take this from you! Are you going to let him?”

Alex shook his head, shoulders heaving as Mark poured water into his mouth. Dayo slapped him on the back. “Finish this!”

So Alex finished it - total knockout in the third round, and when Dana put that belt around his waist, Joe Rogan announcing that Alex was “the undisputed UFC middleweight champion of the world,” he knew that was a once in a lifetime feeling.

He had had the belt for two years when he got the Whittaker fight. At the unofficial weigh in, Whittaker missed weight by one pound, coming in at 186. They gave him another day to make weight, but he weighed in at 185.2, just over the limit of 185. He was fined twenty percent of his purse, and they took away the chance for him to win the title.

They had won Fight of the Night for that fight, Alex remembered as he watched his friends watch it play out on television. There had been one scary moment where Whittaker had gotten him into a triangle hold, Alex breaking free at the last second, scrambling away from him. It was the only fight Alex had ever had that went to decision. He won unanimously, and because Whittaker had been disqualified from title contention, Alex got his bonus of 50,000 plus Whittaker's, which Jackie was especially happy about.

As he sat there with his friends, stomach full of mashed potatoes, watching them scream at the screen, Isabelle squeezing his hand so hard he was losing feeling in it, he realized that there was no way he was going to lose the Dominic Nicholas fight. Not with these people around him.

Like Dayo said, he was a brawler. No one could take that away from him.


	7. just a young gun with the quick fuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / just a young gun with the quick fuse  
> / i was uptight, wanna let loose  
> / i was dreaming of bigger things  
> / and wanna leave my own life behind  
> / not a yes sir, not a follower  
> / fit the box, fit the mold  
> / have a seat in the foyer, take a number  
> / i was lightning before the thunder  
> thunder by imagine dragons

It was the first day of fight camp.

Sometimes for fight camp they took off into the mountains, renting a giant cabin in the middle of nowhere for a few weeks so that Alex could really focus. Sometimes, if he was fighting in Rio or Sydney, they did the entire camp there, so that he would have time to acclimate to the weather and the altitude and the time change. But every time he fought in Las Vegas, he did camp in Las Vegas. Call it superstition, but Alex was convinced that if he left his city and gave up the advantage, he wouldn’t come back a champion.

During fight camp, everyone moved into the apartment: Dayo, Mark, and Nick. They controlled everything he did: his workouts, his meals, his rest plan. They had refined his fight camp plan over the last few years, making sure everything he did would help him win. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Alex started the day with a two-hour spar, his coaches jumping in and out of the ring. They had to wear protective helmets, both for their sake and Alex’s, a rule that had been instituted after he accidentally broke his knuckle on Mark’s jaw. At the beginning of camp, Alex was sparring for three rounds; by the end, it was six. They concentrated a lot on stamina and pacing, since he had a tendency to go all out at the beginning of fight and be totally gassed by the end.

In the afternoons, Alex did mitt work, drills, and swimming, trading off so that he wasn’t doing the same thing every day. Dayo basically followed him around for hours, making sure that he wasn’t overdoing it, especially with his shoulder the way it was.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Alex worked on grappling, judo, wrestling, and take-downs, the areas where he was the weakest, making those days a struggle for everyone. It was Nick’s job to keep him calm, talk him down from the ledge, and keep him from overtraining. They rounded out those days with a whole lot of cardio. 

Alex knew it was going to be different with Isabelle there this year. Normally during the three weeks of fight camp, he stayed off social media almost completely, Jackie sometimes posting a picture on his Instagram here and there. But with the fight coming up, she was really cracking down on him about the Kat thing.

“It’s been really good, yeah?” she asked him a few days ago while they were on a run. “Things with you and Isabelle?”

He nodded, the cold air burning his lungs every time he took a breath. Since Thanksgiving, things had gone back to normal, the kiss in his bed behind them. Sure, he thought about it basically all the time, but at least he could look her in the face now without the uncontrollable urge to do it again. He could control himself. He was an adult. Right?

“Any more contact from Kat?”

She had tried to get ahold of him again after that night at the club, through Jack this time. Jack had told him about it immediately, told him that he was so sorry and he had no idea he had accidentally brought her up to the suite that night, Alex assuring him that it was fine. More than fine, since Isabelle had essentially jumped him because of it, but he left that part out when talking to Jack.

“Yeah,” Alex sighed in response to Jackie’s question, quickly filling her in about Kat’s message to Jack.

“There is no quit in that girl.”

“I guess not.”

“Well,” she said as they rounded the corner, heading back to the penthouse. “I know fight camp is normally a media blackout, but I think you need to keep up appearances, keep posting pictures of Isabelle and the two of you together. Just until we can get through this fight, and then we can re-evaluate.”

Yeah, like he was going to have a problem having to keep pretending this beautiful woman was his girlfriend.

As if she could read his mind (let’s be real, this was Jackie; she absolutely could at this point), she asked the question he had been hoping to avoid. “Have you told her how you feel?”

“How do I feel, Jackie?”

“You know. You love her.” He stopped in his tracks, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. Jackie stopped too, turning around a few feet in front of him. “What? You know it’s true.”

“Love is a very big four-letter word, Jackie.”

“It’s not so big if it’s the truth.”

“Uh, no, it’s definitely still big.”

“Come on.” She started running again, Alex having to hurry to catch up. “Let’s think about this realistically. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Well, let’s see. I tell her. She freaks out. She leaves. Kat comes back. I have no choice but to date her instead. You go crazy and kill yourself in a dramatic fashion on the balcony of my apartment. Which would suck for so many reasons.”

“She’s not going anywhere, Alex. You are the biggest drama queen I have ever met.”

“I prefer drama king, if we’re going to go there.”

“I’m just telling you,” Jackie said as they pushed through the doors of the highrise, heading to the elevator. “I think she would surprise you.”

The truth was that everything Isabelle did still surprised him, even though it had been a month since she had moved in. It was still surprising to him when he stumbled into the kitchen in the mornings, rubbing the sleep from his eyes to see her sitting there at the counter, already pushing his cup of coffee towards him. It was still surprising to him when he got to the end of the pool, finishing a lap, to see her sitting there, legs dangling in the water, a book or her phone dangling precariously over the water. It was still surprising to him every night when she crawled into his bed, tucking herself as close to him as possible.

He didn’t think his heart would ever stop beating this fast.

By the time he and Jackie got back from their run, the boys were already moving their stuff in, duffel bags and suitcases and even a box or two piled in the foyer by the elevator. They were sitting at the kitchen counter with Isabelle.

“Oh no,” Alex groaned when he saw them all there. “It’s too early for this.”

“Oh, we are just beginning,” Isabelle said, jumping up and going over to the stove, grabbing a pan off the burner. “Eggs?”

“Did you cook those?”

“I’m not totally useless, Alex.”

“Alright,” he said, sitting down at the counter. “Hit me.” She handed him a plate of scrambled eggs, dotted with green peppers and mushroom, his favorite. He eyed them warily; he had seen Isabelle try to cook before. A disastrous bacon incident had led to them having to get a ladder and take the smoke detector off the damn ceiling.

“Come on.” She sat down beside him, pushing a fork over to him. “Just try it.”

He took a bite. “Holy shit, Is. You made these?”

“I told you I did!”

“Yes, but like… by yourself? Without the help of Bitesquad?” 

“Angelo taught me.” She was practically beaming with pride. “That way if he’s not here, I can cook for you.” God, he loved this girl.

“Eat up,” Dayo said, slapping him on the back and shattering the moment. “We have to get to the gym.” Alex could have killed him where he stood.

“What are you going to do today?” he asked her, ignoring Dayo completely.

“Well…” She took a sip of coffee. “I was going to try to do some writing. I’ve been working on something, but my computer, which I have had said college, is giving up on itself, so I need to get that figured out.”

“Alex!” God damn it, Dayo.

He shoveled the last of the eggs into his mouth. “Ask Nick to take a look at it tonight. He can fix almost anything.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll do that.” He pushed his plate towards the sink, standing up to walk around the counter and put it in the dishwasher. “I’ll take care of it,” Isabelle said, grabbing his hand. “You go. It’s a big day, and you don’t want to be late.”

Alex had the overwhelming urge to kiss her, just like he did a hundred times a day in those little moments where it was just the two of them.

Less than an hour later, he was at the gym, and it was full of people. Some fighters liked to be completely isolated for their camps; Alex was the exact opposite. Dayo brought in as many people as possible for fight camp: fighters from their gym, fighters from other gyms, Alex’s friends who were fighters. That way he could rotate as many people into Alex’s sparring matches as possible, giving him as many different fighting styles as he could find.

Dayo and Mark had beaten him to the gym, taking off while Alex was still changing and packing his bag. He was definitely later than he had planned, but he was going to just blame that on Nick. No one would think anything of it. Dayo had all the fighters in the gym gathered around him; at this point, all of the regulars who trained there knew the deal for fight camp, knew that there was an expectation that they would be around to help, and Alex would surely repay the favor when it came time for their fights. 

“It’s going to be a hectic three weeks,” Dayo was saying. “We appreciate your patience and your help.” They all dispersed, some of them streaming past Alex and giving him fist bumps or pats on the back. 

Alex immediately caught sight of a fighter named Josh, who had been on his team when Alex coached a season of The Ultimate Fighter opposite Liam Hemsworth. Josh was a bantamweight fighter, but Alex knew instantly that Dayo had brought him in because he was one of the best grapplers Alex had ever had the pleasure to coach.

“Hey, man!” Alex said, grabbing ahold of him. “I can’t believe you came out! Didn’t you just fight?”

Josh didn’t have a UFC contract currently; some of the baby fighters got picked up and dropped every other week, it seemed like. He was fighting in a lower-level professional league right now, and Alex had seen him getting ready for a bout on Instagram last week. He still bore the marks of it, a giant black eye taking over his face.

“You know I’m here for you,” Josh said, grinning.

“I really appreciate that.” Alex tapped him on the back, seeing Dayo waving him over from the door of his office. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

Dayo started him off right away, throwing a roll of tape to him so Alex could wrap his hands while they talked. “I think we should kick this off with some standing work. I don’t want to start with the grappling and take-downs right away.” Dayo didn’t say why, but Alex knew - he got frustrated easily when it came to mat work, always feeling like he didn’t know what he was doing, even after almost a decade in this sport. It was his mental block, and they had to overcome it every single damn fight camp. 

It had been a long time since Alex had been forced to tap, and he had gotten used to his seven figure contract and his winning streak. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let Dominic fucking Nicholas break that.

He had seen that motherfucker all over Instagram and Twitter the last couple of weeks, talking shit, posting pictures of all the fights he had won. He talked a really big game, but Alex knew he had no idea what was coming. It was his first shot at the title, which was a whole different ball game. Sure, the kid had one of the highest take-down percentages in the UFC, but Alex had knock out power, and that was really all that mattered. 

A fight simulation was the closest you could really get to a fight without actually being in one, and that was always how they started out fight camp. Alex could see exactly where he was too slow, how fatigued he got and how fast, and what they needed to hone in on and perfect for the rest of camp. It basically involved Alex in the ring with three or four guys, all coming at him with high intensity, trading off, jumping in and out and circling around each other. There was no real contact, no kicking or punching, but they came at him with mitts and bags and dummies, pushing him up against the side of the cage, which Dayo had traded in for the ropes, making it as close to the real thing as possible.

Dayo got in the ring himself, bringing Nick and a couple of the baby fighters in with him, shutting the cage door behind them. There was a whole lot going on, and Alex didn’t notice right away that someone new had entered the ring until they had him pinned up against the cage, their arm over his neck, grinning at him.

“Oh my God!” he said, pushing her back lightly. “Miesha, what the fuck are you doing here?”

She hugged him, her long brown hair brushing over his face. “There’s no way I was gonna miss the chance to come in here and kick your ass.”

Miesha Tate was the former women’s bantamweight champion, and she had just recently retired at the ripe old age of 32. She was one of the best female grapplers in MMA, maybe one of the best of all time. She had just signed on to commentate for FOX, and Alex hadn’t thought she would show up this year. He should have known better; she came to all of his fight camps. 

It was a better first day of fight camp than he could remember ever having. He didn’t know if it was because they did a lot of striking or if it was because of the mixture of people he got to work with or if it was just because he was more ready for this fight than he had ever been in his life. Regardless, by the time they got done for the day, he felt great.

That feeling wouldn’t last long.

He stepped off the elevator into the foyer with Dayo and Mark and Nick, all of them talking over each other incessantly in an effort to be heard even though none of them were listening. It took Alex a moment to realize that Jackie and Isabelle were sitting in the kitchen in complete silence, Isabelle twisting her hands in her lap, both of them staring at the boys.

What the hell was going on?

“We’ve had… an incident,” Jackie said slowly, trying to gauge Alex’s mood. She had seen him come back from fight camp incredibly upset before. As soon as she was sure he wasn’t already angry, she barrelled on. “With Dominic.”

Alex felt his blood run cold, like a shot of ice through his veins. “What did he do now?”

Isabelle pushed her phone towards him. “I posted a picture of the belt on my Instagram.” He opened her phone, automatically typing in her password and pulling up the picture. The caption read: “Fight Camp, Day One. Keeping the belt where it belongs!” and immediately beneath it, there was a comment.

@domnic: Don’t get involved in big boy stuff little girl… ur just going to get yourself embarrassed… Just have the tissue ready for your boy toy when he loses… that’s ur job ;)

“Oh hell no,” Alex muttered, Dayo grabbing the phone out of his head, Mark and Nick pushing closer to read the words over his shoulder. “Oh, he’s going to pay for this.”

Dayo opened his mouth but Jackie beat him to the punch. “He will, Alex. But make him pay at the fight. You are not, under any circumstances, to engage with him before them.”

“Jackie’s right,” Isabelle said. “He’s not worth it.”

“He can’t talk to you like this.”

“You know better than anyone that he would never do this to Isabelle in person,” Mark said, putting his hand on Alex’s back. “He’s a little bitch who wants to front on the Internet. That’s all.”

Nick chimed in. “If he feels the need to do this psychological warfare before fight week has even started, then he’s clearly insecure. Just do your thing, and you’ll come out on top.”

Alex knew they were right, but he was seeing red, and he could barely even focus on what they were saying, much less his reaction to it. He felt like he was shaking. “This is such bullshit,” he muttered, turning around and storming out of the kitchen, leaving the rest of them behind to figure out what to do next.

* * *

He did what he always did when he got in his own head and went for a swim. Jackie knew better than to try to talk to him when he was this upset, so he could usually do a few dozen laps to calm himself down with no interruptions. He should have known that a life without interruptions could not also include Isabelle.

He was at the opposite end of the pool when she came in, and he saw her roll her pant legs up above her knees, sitting down on the tile and lowering her feet into the water. He turned around, swimming back towards her until he got up close, stopping and pushing his goggles up on his forehead. 

“Alex, it’s fine,” she said immediately, as soon as he could hear her. “There’s nothing to get pissed off about.”

“It’s not fine. For so many reasons.”

“Like what?”

“He can’t talk to you like that,” he repeated, the red burning behind his eyes again. Honestly. Who did this asshole think he was?

“Well, what can you possibly do about it right now?” Isabelle said calmly, trailing her hand in the water and leaving a ripple. 

“Um… I can tell him about himself.”

“Alex.” She sighed exasperatedly, and for a second he almost looked around for Jackie it sounded so much like her. “What would be the point of that? You fight him in twenty three days. Just tell him about himself then.”

“He’s going to be so much worse during fight week if we let him get away with this now.”

“So let him be worse. If he’s focusing on shit talking me, he sure isn’t focusing on beating you.”

Alex knew she was right, which was incredibly annoying. Why did the women in his life have to win all the goddamn time? 

“Come here,” Isabelle said, reaching out for him, and he waded towards her, feeling the water was pulling him back. Once he was close enough, she reached out, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him forward to stand in between her legs. He was glad the water was warm on his skin, so she couldn’t feel that he was burning up underneath her touch.

She smoothed her thumb over his frown lines, water dripping off her fingers and down his face. “I don’t know anything about what you do,” she said softly, so quietly that he could hear the water moving around them. “So I won’t pretend like I do. But I can tell, just from watching you the past few days, that you want this more than anything.”

Well… almost anything.

“So don’t even worry about him,” she continued. “I know that’s obviously easier said than done, but honestly, fuck him. Especially when it comes to me. I’m here for you, not the other way around.” She pulled him closer, resting her forehead against his, and he closed his eyes, water drops dangling precariously from his eyelashes. “I can take care of myself.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to fight you,” he said softly, and she snorted.

He knew without a doubt that if he stayed like that for one more second, he was going to kiss her again, the urge hitting him so quickly that it took his breath away. So he did the only thing he could think to do, and pulled her into the pool.

She came up spitting water. “Alex! What in the fresh hell?”

He grinned at her, backing away slowly. “You looked like you wanted to come in.”

“Oh, did I?” She narrowed her eyes at him, water streaming off her ponytail. “Cause I’m fully dressed.”

He shrugged. “That seems like a you problem, to be quite honest.”

She was a quick little thing, lunging at him and dunking him under the water before he had a chance to get away. 

He knew full well that she was right, and so were Jackie and Dayo and Mark and Nick. The best thing he could in this situation would be to let it go, let Dominic talk as much shit as he wanted, and then kick his ass on Fight Night. And if Alex was acting like a rational being, that would be a much easier pill to swallow.

But there was something about Isabelle that made him act completely irrationally, and that something had been there since the day he met her, making a home in the back of his brain where he couldn’t get rid of it, where it reminded him constantly that this was probably the girl of his dreams and there was no way he could let her go. Not even when it was time. 

She didn’t come into his room that night, ended up staying up really late in the living room with Nick as they tried to piece her computer back together. They were both still asleep when he woke up around four thirty, spread out across the couches. He tiptoed around the kitchen as quietly as he could, heating up his egg white omelet and wincing at the beeping the microwave made, glancing over to make sure he hadn’t woken them up. He ate in silence and darkness, the whole apartment quiet around him. 

He usually liked being the only one awake, especially during fight camp when he was surrounded by his team, felt like it was the only time when he really got a minute to himself. But now he just found himself wishing she was awake, sitting there at the counter with him and telling him that everything would be okay.

He knew today was not going to be a fun day, knew that they were going to work on his ground game. He was glad that it was Miesha and Josh he was going to be working with, knew that they wouldn’t go easy on him but would pull back if he got frustrated, but he knew it wasn’t going to be a fun day. Grappling days were never fun.

As Alex ate, he thought back to what Isabelle had told him the night before, that she could tell he wanted this more than anything. And she was almost right - before he had met her, that was true. And that scared him, that there was something - someone - he could want more than he wanted that belt, that title, that championship.

Before he left, he knelt down next to her, smoothing his hand over her forehead. She shifted slightly, scaring the bejesus out of him, but stayed fast asleep. “Bye, Iz, he whispered. 

If he was smart, he would pull back, try to stay away from her, try to spend the rest of camp the way he normally did - at the gym or holed up in his room, watching hours of film and concentrating on his game plan.

He had never claimed to be smart.


	8. dreams that keep me up in the dead of night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i got dreams that keep me up in the dead of night  
> / telling me i wasn't made for the simple life  
> / there's a light i see, but it's far in the distance  
> / i'm asking you to show me some forgiveness  
> / it's all for you in my pursuit of happiness  
> happiness by needtobreathe

Alex lay flat on his back, breathing hard as she leaned over him, her hair brushing his face. He could feel beads of sweat dripping down the back of his neck as he looked up at her, eyes trained on her face as she bit her lip. This could not be happening.

“Tap,” he said finally, pushing Miesha off him and rubbing his shoulder, the muscles burning as the feeling started to come back into his arm. They were smack in the middle of week two of fight camp, and Miesha had caught him in an armbar three times this morning. Normally, he wasn’t so bad at defending against them, but his concentration was off today for some reason.

“Alex!” Dayo smacked his palms against the cage, the metal rattling. “Come on! You need to get it together.”

“I know.” He rolled over, dropping his head down, holding himself up with his elbows to try to catch his breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Miesha leaned back onto her palms, rolling her neck out. He knew he was acting like he had never had a professional fight before, never seen an armbar before, never had to defend against Miesha’s ground game before. 

“Go again!” Dayo yelled.

Alex pulled his knees up underneath him, waiting for Miesha to come up behind him, hooking her arm around his neck for the choke. She swung her leg over his head, grabbing his leg and flipping him over onto his back, hitting the mat with a crash. He knew he only had a few seconds to get out, but once again, he was too slow for Miesha, and she had him pinned with her legs in no time, cranking his arm back. 

“Tap,” he said again, Miesha jumping off him. He got up, hitting the cage as he did so with a rattling crash. “Goddammit!”

“Okay.” Dayo rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Let’s take a second.”

Alex stormed out of the cage, slamming the door shut behind him with a bang. Sometimes he was convinced that Dayo only switched out the ropes for the cage during camp so that Alex could have a dramatic exit if he so wished.

“What is going on with you?” Nick asked, running after him. 

“I don’t know.” Alex sank down onto a chair in Dayo’s office, Nick shutting the door behind them and sitting down across from him, leaning forward. “It’s like I’ve got a block or something.”

“You’ve always had an armbar block.” 

“Well, thanks.”

“No, I mean it’s been like this before and you’ve gotten out of it. It’s not the end of the world.”

Week two of fight camp was always an emotional experience for Alex, for a lot of reasons. He had made it this far, done all of the training, improved all of his skills, upped his cardio, watched what he ate, worked as hard as he possibly could. But now, with the fight a week and a half away, there wasn’t much more he could do, other than just trust himself. That was hard for Alex to do; he always felt like there was more he had to do, more to learn, more to work on. But eventually, he had given everything he had to give.

“You have to stop getting mad about it,” Nick said. “I know it’s hard, and I know you’re frustrated, but you’re better than this. You’re a better fighter than this. Just get out of your head about it, and it will all come back to you.”

Alex knew he was right. They only went through this every single camp, for fuck’s sake. But it felt like starting over every time because the second he got in his own head, he was screwed. “Take a break!” Dayo screamed through the door. This was harder on him than it was on Alex, if that was even possible. “Go home!”

They always had one or two days like this, days where Alex got too frustrated to keep going and Dayo sent him home for fear that he would get hurt. At least they were getting this out of the way; it was as much a camp ritual as his team moving in or the usual social media blackout. There had been a couple of camps where Alex’s bad day had come late in the third week, and those were the fights that he had been lucky to pull out a win. If the bad day was happening now, he would be in great condition for the fight.

“You’re home early,” Isabelle said, her tone accusatory, hands on her hips when Alex got back to his apartment.

He dropped his bag on the floor, stepping over it on his way to the fridge. “It was D-day.”

“Ah, shit.” Isabelle knew all about days like today; she had gotten fair warning from virtually everyone in Camp Valhalla. “What do you need me to do?”

Alex stared into the fridge, knowing that all he could eat was chicken and rice or egg whites and asparagus or a fucking chia bowl, none of which seemed all that appetizing right now. What he really wanted was a giant pizza and fried chicken and a cinnamon roll. Finally, he just slammed the fridge shut, knowing he was only going to make himself more irritated.

‘Can we just hang out? Watch TV or something and not think about the fight for a few hours? I feel like my head is going to explode.”

He honestly didn’t know what he did when he got into a head space like this before Isabelle came along. In camps past, it usually fell to Jackie to calm him down, and she had gotten better over the years but the truth was that she was even more neurotic than he was, and they usually ended up just winding each other up, no end in sight in a perpetual tornado of despair and stress.

Isabelle, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of both him and Jackie. Where they were stressed, she was calm. Where they were panicked, she was soothing. When Alex felt like he was going to jump out of his skin, it took one touch from Isabelle - her hand on his shoulder or his leg or his neck - and he was instantly calmer. It was like she was some sort of drug or something. 

“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” she asked as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. He usually didn’t during camp, didn’t even realize how tired he was until the fight was over and all of the adrenaline had slowly drained out of his body, leaving him to sleep for a week. 

“I guess not,” he said, pushing open the door to his room, waiting for Isabelle to go in first. 

“That’s not good for you.”

He probably shouldn’t have gotten so used to Isabelle sleeping in his bed, since he was starting to figure out that now he had a tough time falling asleep without her there next to him, her breath warm against his neck. 

She jumped up onto his bed, standing in her spot and pointing at the space in front of her. “Lay down,” she said. “On your stomach. Face that way.”

Bossy. He lay down on his stomach, facing the television, and within a few moments, he felt her move towards him, sitting down on the small of his back. He pillowed his head on his arms, feeling her hands move up the muscles of his back and come to rest on his shoulders.

“You’ve got hella knots up in here,” she told him, and he snorted, feeling her shift with the movement of his back. She pushed down hard on one of them, a yelp coming out of his mouth. “Hold still,” she said, pushing down on his back. “I’m gonna try to get them out.”

She had a lot of power for such a tiny human, and he felt the tension in his muscles start to melt away as she worked on his back. “You need to learn how to manage your stress better,” she said, shoving her knuckles into a hard spot under his shoulder blade. “You’re gonna have an aneurysm or something.”

“I try,” he said, taking a deep breath and wincing. 

“How? Name one stress reliever that you’re actually good at.” He didn’t say anything, just turned his head to look at her, smirking. “Oh, Alex, come on. This is exactly why girls keep turning up pregnant.”

“Hey, I’m not a father yet.”

“Yet being the key word here.”

She pushed his head down, rubbing the back of his neck with her thumbs. “Do you miss Wisconsin?” he asked, trying to change the subject even though he was the one who had brought up sex in the first place. Yeah, that was real smart of him.

“I miss my family,” Isabelle said, shifting her weight. “I don’t miss the town, especially in the winter. I mean, you know… the Midwest is fucking disgusting from November to March.”

“Oh come on. You don’t miss the snow?”

“Are you kidding me? Do I miss having to wake up forty minutes early to start my car just so I didn’t freeze to death driving to school? Do I miss falling on black ice every single day? Do I miss it being negative twenty degrees and everyone acting like that’s just normal? Absolutely not.”

“You’re nuts.” Alex shook his head, cracking his neck. “I love being out here, but it doesn’t ever feel like Christmas, not without snow.”

“You’re the nutty one,” Isabelle said, rolling off his back and sitting down cross legged beside his head. “There. How does that feel?”

He pushed himself up to his knees, stretching his arms back until his shoulder blades were almost touching. He heard a few pops, but he had to admit his back and shoulders and neck felt better than they had in ages. Why the hell was he paying his chiropractor so much? “It feels…” He rolled out his bad shoulder; even that wasn’t hurting. “Really good. Thanks, Iz.”

“Of course.” She winked at him. “Now you should try to get some sleep.”

She rolled off the bed, padding over to his nightstand and hitting the button for the blackout shades, which started to come down slowly, throwing the room into night even though it was barely noon. He grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling it off over his head and letting it puddle on the floor next to the bed. She had her hand on the doorknob when he said her name, and she stopped to look at him.

“Yeah?”

Alex hesitated. “Can you stay?” It felt weird to ask. Most nights it was just expected at this point that she would come into his room and fall asleep there. But it wasn’t nighttime and she wasn’t going to bed, so this would have to be a conscious choice on her part. 

“Of course,” she said without skipping a beat, shutting the door with a soft click. He pulled the blankets up, sliding under them as she went around to her side, climbing in next to him. Without thinking, he put his arm out, and she rolled over into his side, hooking her leg over his. Within minutes, he was asleep.

* * *

Maybe Isabelle was the good luck charm he needed. That’s what Alex had decided upon nearing the last day of week two. He had gone back to the gym apprehensively the day after Dayo had sent him home, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anything accomplished if he had the same shitty attitude he’d had the day before.

He knew Dayo wasn’t going to let him off easy, was going to make him practice his ground game and takedown defense all day, and sure enough, Miesha had been right there waiting for him when he walked in, bright and early.

“Hey sunshine,” she said. She was sitting on the steps of the cage, wrapping her hands. “You ready to get back to this?”

And inexplicably, that practice had been the best of any camp Alex had ever had. He couldn’t put his finger on why. It felt like he knew what Miesha was thinking, knew where she was going to move before she did it, could feel it in her body as she moved around him. The same thing happened with he fought Josh, and then Mark, and then Nick, and then even Dayo, who was a chore to beat even on his best day. 

All Alex could chalk it up to was that he had gotten the best few hours of sleep he’d had in weeks, and that was all because of Isabelle. She had been helpful in other ways also, ways that he never would have thought of if left on his own. God, it was a good thing he had her. 

He had slept straight through dinner, only eating because Isabelle woke him up by bringing him his plate of chicken and rice in bed. “I figured you would be a lot crankier if you missed a meal,” she said, handing him the plate and a fork before crawling up next to him and turning on The Office. 

“You ain’t wrong,” he said, shoveling rice into his mouth. His stomach felt like it was practically touching his spine. “Thank you for this.”

“Anything for you.” She swiped a piece of broccoli off of his plate, shoving it into her mouth. “Do you feel better?”

“Much.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened at practice?”

He sat back against the pillows, rubbing his bad shoulder subconsciously. “I just get in my head about certain shit, and once I start to freak out about it, I really freak out about it. And it’s like no matter what I do or how much I train or what drills I run, I can’t do these really basic things that I’ve been able to do for the last ten years.”

“Like what?”

“Get out of an armbar.”

“What’s an armbar?”

Alex thought about how to explain it to her, finally deciding that showing her would just be easier. “Here.” He balanced his plate on the nightstand precariously, pushing it towards his alarm clock. “So you know I’m better on my feet, yeah?”

“That’s what Nick said.”

“I’m more of a striker than a grappler, so I have fast footwork and fast hands. A grappler is someone who is more of a judo fighter; they fight on the ground. That’s what Dominic does. He looks for takedowns and then tries to get his opponent into a spot where they have to tap, like with a rear naked choke or a guillotine or an armbar. That’s called a submission.”

She was leaning forward, looking at him. One of his favorite things about Isabelle was that she was also one hundred percent interested in whatever he had to say, even if there was no way she could actually find it interesting. “So your strategy is to stay on your feet.”

“Yes.” He pushed her onto her back gently, leaning over her. “I’ve been focusing a lot on my takedown defense the last couple weeks. But it just hasn’t been clicking. I’ve known how to defend against a takedown since I was seventeen years old but lately, for some reason… nada.”

She looked up at him, biting her lip. “Okay. Show me.”

Alex was lucky his bed was so big or he would have fallen right off it as he hooked his arm around her neck, pulling her over his head and pinning her down, lightly pulling her arm and knowing that if he arched his back, he would dislocate her elbow. “Like that.”

She flexed her arm slightly, and he knew she was feeling it burn, knew that if she moved it even a little she would be in a world of hurt. He let go. “So how do you get out of it?” she asked, rolling over and looking at him.

“There are different ways.” He propped himself up on his elbows. “You can try to roll out of it or use your legs or spin into a rear naked choke situation. Or you can do what I’ve been doing all week, which is just start to panic until Miesha practically rips my arm out of its socket.”

“But you obviously know what to do. It’s got to be muscle memory at this point.”

“Yeah, it’s a total mental thing. Dayo says I’m a headcase about the armbar. I lost my first amateur fight because of an armbar submission and I guess it’s just stuck with me since then or something.”

“But how many fights have you had since then?”

“Dozens.”

“Exactly. We just have to get you out of your own head. You’re doing the most damage to yourself, and do you really want to make it that easy for Dominic?”

Good point. “Okay. How do you suggest we do that?”

“Teach me.”

“Teach you what?”

She sat up, straddling him. “Teach me how to armbar you. Obviously I have no idea what I’m doing, so it’ll be like fighting a beginner and you can just practice getting out of it over and over until it feels like muscle memory again.”

That actually wasn’t a bad idea.

He flipped her off him easily, careful not to accidentally throw her off the bed. “Okay,” he said, very aware of the fact that he was so close to her. “It’s all about leverage; it really has nothing to do with strength. That’s why Miesha, who weighs in at a buck thirty-five, can flip me like it’s nothing.” He showed her the steps, showed her how to hook her elbow around his neck to keep him in place, how to use her legs to move him around. “Beginning fighters always think they can control their opponent by moving their head, but that’s actually really far from the truth,” he said, her arm around his neck as she tried to hook her legs around him. “You always go lower. It’s a center of gravity thing.”

She caught on fast, and it definitely wasn’t because Alex was such a great teacher. He tried to go easy on her, didn’t want to hurt her, but before long she was really going after him, trying to keep him pinned down to the mattress. There were a couple of times she really had him, but overall her plan worked - he was able to just practice, without fear of getting hurt or looking stupid, had plenty of time to figure out where he was going to go next and how he was going to get back on top. 

It was like she relaxed him, like when he was with her he could feel all the tension draining away, leaving behind just the two of them. That being said, they had a couple of close calls that Alex tried desperately to brush off as normal, like it was a totally run of the mill thing to be teaching his fake girlfriend how to armbar him in his bed, her face inches from his, her hair brushing his neck, and arms locked around him. Yep. Totally normal.

He could tell the next day with Miesha that all that training with Isabelle had actually paid off. He wasn’t nervous anymore, didn’t feel like he was getting frustrated or irritated or stressed. Honestly, it felt like what fighting used to feel like, back when he used to do it for fun and not a paycheck.

“So you feel okay now?” Jackie asked cautiously on Saturday night, week two of fight camp officially behind them. Alex knew that she was thinking back to a couple of his more disastrous fight camps where he had barely managed to snap out of it in time.

“Better than okay.” He was sprawled across her bed, flipping through the channels before coming to a stop on Real Housewives of Orange County, which he knew was Jackie’s favorite of the Real Housewives franchise, even though she would never admit it. “There were a rough couple of days but we’re back on track.”

“Good.” She rolled her eyes at the television, and Alex ignored her completely, knowing her deep love for Tamra Judge and complete inability to admit that fact. “This is gonna be a big one, Alex. Your biggest one yet.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. Every time he thought about the fight, it felt like his stomach muscles were fluttering, like he could barely take a breath. It was different than his other fights for so many reasons, not the least of which was that Isabelle was in his life now, and for the first time he felt like he had a lot of things to fight for.

“You’re gonna be great. It’s gonna be your glory day.”

“You think?”

“I’m positive.”

Jackie had been the first one to use the phrase glory day around Alex. Back when they were in that shitty house, they would stay up late after Alex got done bartending, set up camp in the kitchen or out on the patio, and talk about what their lives would be like after Alex made it big. “We’ll have our glory day,” she used to say. “And then after that, the rest of our lives will be a lot of glory days put together. You’ve got that glory in you, Alex.”

No one believed in him harder than Jackie, that was for damn sure.

“And things with Isabelle?”

He cleared his throat, listening to Tamra yelling at Gretchen or Vickie or Alexis. “They’re good.”

“Have you told her that you love her?”

“Jackie.” He threw a pillow at her, not taking his eyes off the television. “Love is a really big word.”

“It’s a really big feeling.”

“How would you know?” Jackie was even worse than Alex about dating, if that was possible. In the five years he had known her, she had never had a boyfriend, and she very rarely went out on real dates.

“Hey,” she said indignantly, throwing the pillow back at him. “I love people. I love you.”

“Not in the same way.”

“That you love Isabelle, you mean.”

Yep, he had walked right into that one. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Just tell her, Alex. Wait until after the fight if you need to. But you have to tell her. You owe it to her and you owe it to yourself.”

Jackie’s words kept circling through his head. Maybe she was right. Maybe he should tell her. He couldn’t get her voice out of his head, not when he was eating dinner with her and Isabelle that evening, not later that night when Isabelle was snoring softly next to him (she swore up and down that she didn’t snore, but he had weeks of proof to refute that), not the next day when he woke up early and slipped out of the house so he could finally get his Christmas shopping done.

Almost everyone was done; Alex was big on Cyber Monday and had ordered all of his Christmas presents alone the Monday after Thanksgiving. Jackie got Louboutins (the exact pair that she had not so subtly texted him a picture of on Black Friday); Dayo got a signed Black Panther poster; Mark, a really old, really expensive bottle of scotch. He paid Natalie’s tuition for her last semester at school and ordered her an expensive suit, bought Sophia a new snowboard and season lift tickets, and seriously considered buying Nick a lifesize Stormtrooper before finally just shoving cash in an envelope and calling it a day. For Leven, he found a giant, toolbox sized makeup case, and for Jack, signed Conor McGregor gloves that he had had to call in a lot of favors to scrounge up. And for his mom, more wine than she would ever be able to drink, as she was hellbent on filling her newly constructed wine cellar.

Isabelle was the only one left, and he honestly had no idea what to get her. He had been badgering her for days, asking her what she wanted, and every time she just answered that she didn’t need anything, that he had done more than enough and he had better not buy her anything. That wasn’t an option, so he was flying blind. Not even Jackie would help him. 

He knew he was going to get her a new computer; that was a no-brainer. The girl was a writer, through and through, and without her computer she was stuck scribbling on whatever she could find when the mood struck. He was constantly finding scraps of paper stuck all over his house, some with his name on them, some with details about camp or the apartment or the team, some of them more cryptic, just scrawled adjectives and initials, almost like she was writing in code. 

Alex had had Jackie order a new gold Macbook, intercepting the package when it got to the house. He hadn’t realized how much more difficult it got to order Christmas presents when your fake-girlfriend roommate was the nosiest person in the entire world. That was already stashed under his bed, still in its box and waiting to be wrapped.

The problem, Alex thought, was that it wasn’t personal enough. Sure, he had known this girl for all of six weeks, but she was as big a part of his life as Jackie or Dayo or the rest of his team. Bigger in some ways, since she was sleeping in his bed every night and they had kissed more than once. 

That’s how Alex ended up in Cartier, Jackie’s words still racing around the inside of his head. She was right, as always, not that he would ever admit that fact. But she was - he owed it to himself, at the very least, to tell Isabelle that he was in love with her. He would wait until after the fight, of course, since then their contract would be over and he could do whatever he wanted. But until then, a Love bracelet would have to do.

“You got her what?” Jackie screeched when he got back, pulling him into her office and slamming the door shut behind them, actually locking it this time. “Let me see!”

Alex pulled the little red box out of the bag, putting it on Jackie’s desk. She opened it carefully, almost reverently, the shiny circle of yellow gold standing out against the black velvet. “Shut up!” She ran her finger over it, staring up at Alex. “Shut. Up.’

“Too much?”

“No. It’s perfect. I’m just insanely jealous. I loved you first, you know.”

So back to the Cartier store Alex went, picking up another bracelet for Jackie because once again, she was right. She had loved him first.

Alex had no idea what he was going to say when he actually gave Isabelle the bracelet. Obviously, he couldn’t tell her right then on Christmas five days before the fight that he loved her so much he could hardly breathe when he was around her. That’s when he thought that maybe if he did something even bigger than the bracelet, he wouldn’t have to say anything at all.


	9. one day i'ma shake up the whole world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / one day i'ma do it like i never did it  
> / one day i'ma have the courage to go out and get it  
> / one day i'ma do what i love and support my girl  
> / one day i'ma shake up the whole world  
> one day by logic and ryan tedder

The UFC Embedded crew showed up bright and early on December twenty-second, bringing a ton of equipment up in the elevator and setting up shop in the kitchen before Alex even woke up. The last week of fight camp was always different than the first few weeks. Instead of sticking to a strict training schedule, they were all more relaxed. Alex would still do a few practices and a whole lot of cardio, but they started to eliminate the stand-up sparring and high contact grappling, for fear that he would get hurt.

It was always nice when a fight fell on New Year’s Eve, because it meant that Alex could actually celebrate Christmas. His family was flying in tomorrow, and save for the weight cut, it would feel like a totally normal holiday. Except for the fact that they were going to meet his fake girlfriend.

That had been a fun conversation to have with his mother. “So you’re not actually dating?”

“No,” he sighed into the phone. It was only the third or fourth time they had circled this particular point. “We’re not.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing to get. It’s just a PR thing.” He figured it was best to hide from Sharlene how in love with this girl he actually was, for fear that she would start talking about grandbabies. Alex was the oldest, and it was a big disappointment to his mother that she was not yet a grandma. 

“So you’re not dating.” It was less of a question this time, and Alex tried to pretend that he couldn’t hear disappointment in her voice.

“No.”

“But she’ll be there.”

“Yes. She lives with me.”

“Alex, I don’t get it.”

They went around like that for a while until Alex was finally able to confirm their flight number, assuring his mom that everything was fine and he would see them soon.

He stumbled down the stairs that Monday morning, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Jackie managed to grab him just before he turned the corner into the kitchen, sending him back upstairs to put a shirt on. “For the love of God, Alexander,” she hissed, trying to be as quiet as possible so the doc crew wouldn’t hear her. “Act like you’ve done this before!” Jackie always got inordinately stressed when UFC Embedded entered their lives.

Isabelle was already in the kitchen, charming the pants off of the camera crew. There was food everywhere, enough muffins and donuts and bagels for them to open a bakery. Alex came up behind her, tying his sweatpants on a little bit tighter, and put his hand on her back.

“Hi baby!” she said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek like that was a totally normal thing they did all the time. 

“Good morning,” he said, his voice still scratchy with sleep as he made his way around the kitchen, shaking hands and welcoming the crew back into his home. He had had the same camera crew for his last few fights, and they seemed to become just as part of the team as his coaches and cornermen. 

“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Jackie asked him, coming up behind them and hopping up onto the counter.

“I need to pick up a couple of suits from the tailor,” Alex said, eyeing the blueberry muffins steadily until Isabelle pushed the tray away from him. He glared at her, and she shrugged. “Thought Iz and I could go to lunch before training.”

“Perfect.” Jackie tapped something into her phone, setting it down on the counter. She turned to the camera crew. “You guys feel free to do whatever you need to around the house until they are ready to leave.” Alex knew they would get a bunch of B-roll shots of the belt hanging up in the office and the gym and the pool, and they dispersed quickly, silently spreading through the apartment.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked Isabelle when it was just them, alone in the kitchen. 

“You sit,” she said, jumping up and pushing him down onto one of the bar stools, grabbing the granola and honey and peanut butter and chia seeds, dumping everything into a bowl just the way he liked it and sliding it towards him with a spoon. How was it possible that she found out so much about him in such a short period of time? “Of course I’m ready. Are you?”

He took a big bite, mumbling a response around the spoon. “Born ready.”

Isabelle took extra long getting ready to leave the house that morning, even longer than she normally did which was really saying something. Leven showed up around eight thirty, still yawning and lugging a beat-up makeup case with her, sticking her tongue out at Alex as she passed by him in the living room, heading upstairs to Isabelle’s room. 

Finally, around ten o’clock, she came down, dressed in black skinny jeans and a gray peacoat that made her seem even smaller. The camera crew trailed behind them, filming them as they got on the elevator and made their way down to the street. 

It had been a while since Alex had had his every move filmed, and it always took him a couple of days to get used to it again. They followed him as he opened Isabelle’s door, helping her into the G-Wagon, and got in their car to follow the couple to the tailor’s.

Gary Franzen Custom Clothier was about a ten minute drive, just off the strip behind Mandalay Bay. Alex was glad to have those ten minutes alone, just him and Isabelle; he knew that the next ten days would be a non-stop whirlwind of people, and he would be lucky to get any time on his own, even on Christmas. Isabelle put her hand over his, not saying anything, just looking out the window, and he couldn’t tell for the life of him if she was nervous or exciting or annoyed. The girl was impossible to read at the best of times; every time he thought he had her figured out, she went and did the complete opposite of what he was expecting.

“Alex!” Gary gave him a big hug when they walked into the clothier, introducing himself to Isabelle. Gary had made all of Alex’s suits for the past few years, the man behind the mantra of “look good, feel good, fight good.”

“You ready to see it?”

“Hit me,” Alex said, following Gary into the back of the store, the cameras trailing them. The suit was hanging up on the dressing room wall, long and lean with sharp edges, royal blue with black accents. “Oh wow,” he said, reaching out and touching the lapel. “It’s sick, Gary. I love it.”

“Good. Try it on.”

Alex turned to the cameras, holding the jacket open to show off the “Camp Valhalla” label that Gary had stitched into every single piece of his clothing. “This will be for press day on Sunday,” he said, letting the jacket fall back into place. The camera crew stepped back while he changed, capturing his reaction when he stepped out of the dressing room and out into the shop, looking in the full length mirror.

“Ooh, you look good, baby,” Isabelle said, standing up from where she had been sitting, messing around on her phone. She came over to him, adjusting the collar.

“It looks sharp,” Alex said, flexing his shoulders back. Gary moved around him, pulling on the fabric in the back, adjusting a pleat in the pants, bringing out a few ties for him to choose from. Alex held up his two favorites, one black and one bright blue. “Which one?”

“The blue one,” Isabelle said, tipping her head to the right. “Go big or go home.”

He grinned at her, turning back to Gary. “Definitely the blue.” 

“Good choice.” Gary took it, holding it up against the suit and nodding. 

Another twenty minutes or so and they were ready to go, the suit bagged up and carefully put in the back of the G. “Thanks so much,” Alex said, shaking Gary’s hand. “I’ll see you again soon.”

“I expect you come back here after the fight and tell me all about it,” Gary said.

“Definitely.”

They walked to a sandwich shop down the road, and Alex was even more conscious of the fact that he was being filmed than he normally was. It was a whole different dynamic with Isabelle involved. As they left the clothier, she casually slipped her hand into his, lacing their fingers together, and Alex had to keep reminding himself not to blur the line between what he wanted and what was reality. Not yet anyways.

“He eats the same thing before every workout,” Isabelle said to the cameras as they sat down at a table, someone bringing their food over to him. “Honey, peanut butter, and banana.”

“Lots of carbs,” Alex said, taking a big bite and trying desperately not to glob honey all down the front of his shirt. “Good before training. Although I have to eat it before Iz does. She eats all my food. Her nickname is Lunchbox.”

Isabelle snorted, her mouth full of turkey, and hit him in the arm. He had learned very quickly that this girl could put away food like nobody he had ever seen before; she was constantly eating. “I’m gonna need that knockout bonus just to keep us in food.”

The cameraman laughed, the camera shaking slightly. “Shut up, Alex,” Isabelle said once she had swallowed. “You just don’t eat that much.”

“She ate eight Pop-Tarts in one sitting.”

“Hey, that was an accomplishment.”

He loved getting to spend this much time around her, felt like he was a different person when she was around, less neurotic, less stressed, calmer, more centered. She came with him to the gym that afternoon, sat in the corner, scribbling in her notebook while he trained. 

Dayo had decorated for Christmas, went all out like he normally did. Every fighter had a stocking strung up around the wall, Alex’s bright green with his name stitched across the top in red. There were Christmas lights up, throwing pops of red and white and green into the ring as he grappled with Mark. 

“He’s working on transitions today,” Alex could hear Dayo say to the cameras as he flipped Mark onto the mat, trying to keep him from scrambling away. “We want Dominic to have to adjust to Alex. We’re not worrying so much about the other way around.” That was a blatant lie, they all knew it, but they also knew that this video would be going up on YouTube the next day, and the chances Dominic was going to immediately watch it were high. “We’ve been building to his style. We’ve brought in judo fighters, high level wrestlers, high level kickboxers. There isn’t going to be any sort of surprise that he can throw at us that we haven’t already seen coming.”

Alex jumped on Mark’s back as soon as he saw an opening. “Good, good!” Nick yelled, leaning on his elbows on the edge of the ring, looking up at them. He hooked his elbow around Mark’s neck, pulling backwards. “Nice, Alex.”

They rounded out the day watching film in the theater back at Alex’s apartment, all of them spread out across the recliners: Alex, Dayo, Mark, Nick, the doc crew, even Jackie and Isabelle trickled in and out. 

Alex had seen more of Dominic in the last three hours then he ever wanted to for the rest of his life, and unfortunately fight week was just beginning. He hadn’t been in the same room as him since the day he had walked into Alex’s gym like he owned the place, and he didn’t think he would be able to control himself when he saw him again for the first time.

The memory of that day was burned into his brain. Alex had been in the ring, running boxing drills with Nick, when the glass door of the gym had slammed open, the whole gym shaking. He didn’t look away from Nick, assumed it was just one of the fighters having a bad training day. He only figured out that something was wrong when Nick didn’t even try to dodge his next punch, stumbling backwards after Alex connected with his jaw.

“Nick, what the hell?”

“Ludwig!” he heard from behind him, knew immediately it was Dominic. This kid had been coming after him on Twitter for weeks, kept challenging him and insulting him and baiting him. He had kept his tongue in check for now, but every day he got closer and closer to really telling him about himself. 

“What the hell are you doing in my gym?” he asked, turning around and cracking his neck. 

“You’re too pussy to respond to me,” Dominic said, backlit by the light outside and surrounded by his stupid little posse. “So I figured I would have to come down here and say what I need to say in person.”

Alex could feel his skin turning hot. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Dominic stepped closer, his teammates coming with him. “Why don’t you make me?”

“Why don’t you come up here and fight me right now?” He pushed his shoulder blades back, cracking his spine. “You’re so big and tough when you’ve got your entire team around you.”

Unsurprisingly, Dominic didn’t move, so Alex did, pushing through the ropes and hopping down to the ground. He had a solid three inches on Dominic, and even that small amount made it seem like he was towering over him when he got in his face. 

“If you think you’re so great,” Dominic said loudly, making sure everyone in the gym heard the stupidity that was about to come out of his mouth. “Then why don’t you let me challenge you for the belt? If you’re really as good as you want to believe, then you have nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t have anything to worry about anyways,” Alex said. “Take one look at my record and you’ll see that.”

“All I see is a golden child. Dana set you up for this. You didn’t earn it.”

And that’s when Alex threw a punch. Dominic was lucky Alex still had gloves on, lucky that he was too close to really connect, but even so, he stumbled backwards. Immediately Dominic’s entire team was on Alex, Nick and Mark and Dayo and the rest of the gym jumping in between, pushing everyone apart. There was a lot of yelling and swearing and name calling happening on both sides until Dayo put a stop to it.

“Enough!” he yelled, turning to Dominic’s team. “I have never seen anything like this before in my life. You need to leave. Now.”

And here Alex was, over a year later, watching hours and hours of Dominic’s fights, the last thing in the world he wanted to be doing. But he knew this would give him the edge, knew Dominic wasn’t doing this because he thought he was too good for it. 

“See that?” Dayo asked, pausing the footage and pointing at it with his pen. “That’s what he’s going to try to do to you the second you get on top of him. He’s gonna change his hand position and try to back out and flip the situation.”

“Yeah.” Alex leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and scrutinizing the screen. “So go for the choke if I see an opening, but…”

“Keep on your feet,” Dayo finished. “As long as you can. You can outbox him, no question. He’s gonna go for the takedown and he’s gonna go low. You’ll see it coming.”

* * *

Alex shouldn’t be allowed to wrap presents. He had barricaded himself in his room with three rolls of wrapping paper and two rolls of tape and a pair of scissors, packages and bags strewn across the floor. He had never really learned how to do this correctly - most years he had Jackie take care of it but she, for some reason, was nowhere to be found. 

Isabelle had already tried to bust into the room three times, even going so far as to pick the lock before Alex could jump up and slam the door in her face. “You really don’t get the concept of presents, do you?” he yelled at her through the closed door.

“I just want to make sure our presents are proportional. Like what if you got me something really great and I got you… I don’t know, a sweater.”

“Did you buy me a sweater?”

“Well, no. It was a hypothetical sweater.”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Alex! Just let me in!”

“No chance.” 

She sat outside the door for a few minutes, alternatively kicking it and yelling at him before she finally wandered away. It only took him a solid two hours, but by the time he had to leave to pick up the girls from the airport, he had a semi-neatly wrapped pile of presents. If you didn’t look too closely, that might be passable.

“Iz!” he yelled down the hall, poking his head out to make sure she wasn’t lurking. “Are you ready to go to the airport?”

That had been another one of Jackie’s ideas, sending Isabelle to the airport with Alex. Normally, he jumped at any chance he got to spend a little alone time with this girl, but this one was a little bit concerning to him. He knew his mom, and he knew how she was going to act. Even though she was in on the secret, she was going to treat Isabelle like she was actually Alex’s girlfriend, and while that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he didn’t know how to prepare Isabelle for that.

She came out of her room, buttoning up her jacket. “Do I look okay?”

“You look great,” he said. “But you know we’re just going to the airport.”

“Yeah, but I want to make a good impression.”

He herded her downstairs, keeping her as far away from his open door as possible, making a mental note to text Ava and ask her to move all of the presents downstairs under the tree. They were meeting the camera crew at the airport, and they were already running late. He definitely didn’t have enough time to fight Isabelle away from the pile. 

She was bouncing her leg up and and down in the car incessantly, Alex finally reaching over to put his hand on her knee. This was easily the most nervous she had ever seemed. “Thank you for coming,” he said, turning to look at her once they stopped at a red light. “I know this is weird.”

“It’s not.” She shook her head. “It’s not weird. I’m just… I don’t know, overthinking it or something.”

“She’s gonna love you,” he said. “Everyone loves you.” Okay, Alex. Time to move past that as quickly as possible. “Just be yourself.”

Alex pulled into the parking ramp at the airport, the Jeep barely able to fit. When he went to open her door, she had her seat belt unbuckled and was facing him. “Alex.” She put her cold hands on his face, looking at him intently. “I don’t want anything to change.”

There was a lot to unpack there. “What do you mean? What’s going to change?”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “With you and me… I… I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean. I just… I’m happy.”

His heart jumped. “I’m happy too.” He wanted to tell her right there in that parking ramp, wanted to tell her that he was so in love with her. But that wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t part of it. And honestly, he didn’t know where she was going with this. Maybe what she actually meant was that she just wanted to be friends. So no, he could not go there right now. 

“Good.” She pulled him towards her, resting her forehead against his. They stayed like that for a few seconds. “Okay. I’m ready.”

The camera crew was waiting for them at the door to Arrivals, walking behind them as they headed towards baggage claim. A few people recognized him, a couple of them stopping Alex to ask for a picture or his autograph. Isabelle got such a kick out of taking fan photos for him, always jumping in and grabbing the person’s phone as soon as they asked. 

“Are you excited?” the cameraman asked him. “When was the last time you saw your family?”

“Oh boy,” Alex said, frowning as he thought. “It’s been… about six months. They were last here on my birthday. Someday I’ll get my mom to move out here.”

“Alex.” Isabelle grabbed his arm. “They’re here.”

He turned around, saw his mom and sisters coming down the escalator, Sophia already bouncing up and down. As soon as they got to the bottom, she took off, sprinting towards Alex, the sliding doors barely opening in time. Isabelle took a step back, grinning as she jumped on him, Natalie close behind. 

Alex missed his sisters more than he could express. It was great having Nick with him all of the time, but it wasn’t the same without the girls. They had been his best friends growing up, and the four of them had always been inseparable. “I fucking missed you,” Natalie said, Sophia still hanging off him like a monkey.

“Natalie. Language.” His mom was smiling even as she scolded them. 

“Hi, momma,” he said, Sophia finally jumping down so he could hug them all properly. 

His mother really could not care less that he was standing in front of her right now. “Where is she?”

Alex turned around, reaching behind him to grab Isabelle, pulling her forward. “This is Isabelle.” His mom grabbed her immediately, hugging her tight before holding her at arm’s length.

“So you are the girl making my son so happy.”

“Mom!” He was hyper aware of the cameras behind them, recording everything they said and did, and he knew it was time to get them out of there before his family either blew their cover or he had to bury himself in the ground due to embarassment. 

As he was loading their suitcases into the back of the Jeep, Natalie hopped in the front, leaving Isabelle in the back with his mom and Sophia. It only took the twenty minute drive back to the house for Alex to realize that there really wasn’t anything to worry about, not as far as Isabelle was concerned. There wasn’t one person in his life who didn’t adore her, and his family was no different. 

* * *

The apartment was a clusterfuck. Every single guest room was full. Jackie had moved into Isabelle’s room for the time being so that Sophia and Natalie could bunk down in hers. Nick and Mark were in another room, Dayo in a trundle bed on their floor. His mom was right next door to him, which really brought him back to high school when he used to sneak girls in on weekend nights like she had no idea what was going on.

Everyone was going to be there for Christmas day; even Leven and Jack were coming over. It was the least lonely his apartment had felt in years, and yet all Alex could think about was being alone with Isabelle. For almost two months it had been just the two of them, Dayo and Mark and Jackie and Nick circling around, sure, but in essence, he spent most of his free time with her. Now, with the apartment packed, he found himself manufacturing ways to get her alone.

It was good that Nick was around; he could be the way to entertain the family since Alex was still technically in camp. He ended up in the gym on the morning of Christmas Eve, running on the treadmill for a few miles, appreciating the quiet while he could. He knew he should be thinking about the fight, about his game plan and his training, but his mind kept wandering to Isabelle and what he was planning on telling her.

One more week and the contract would be done, Alex free to do whatever he wanted.

He had never been the kind of person who played it safe, didn’t take risks and expected everything to work out. His entire career was built on a risk, as was Jackie’s, and he wasn’t going to change his ways now. He was going to make it through this week and win the fight, and then on January first, he was going to tell Isabelle all of the things he had been wanting to say for the last two months.

It was settled.

The house was inexplicably quiet when he got back. Nick, his mom, and the girls were watching television in the living room, blankets and marshmallows and cups of hot chocolate scattered everywhere. The tree was twinkling next to the television, its branches bending under the weight of ornaments and lights and tinsel, presents piled high underneath it. Alex had set it up himself, Isabelle following him with the string of lights, and he’d boosted her up onto his shoulders to put the star on top. 

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked, plopping himself down on the couch next to Natalie and grabbing the mug out of her hand, taking a big sip. “Ow, Jesus, that’s hot.”

“We just made it,” she said, rolling her eyes and grabbing the mug back, chucking a couple of mini marshmallows at him. “Besides, you’re not supposed to be drinking this anyways.”

She was right, just like all of the other women in his life. He was about to start the hard cut. He had to be a hundred and eighty-five pounds by the twenty-ninth, and he was currently sitting at a solid buck ninety-five. As long as he stuck to his diet and kept drinking water, he would be fine, but hot chocolate was not in that diet.

“Only a few more days,” Natalie said, seeing the look on his face and patting his leg. “Then you can eat whatever you want.”

“Don’t test me, Nat.” He stuck his tongue out at her, and she winked at him over the rim of her cup. “For real though. Where the hell is everyone?”

“Mark and Dayo are upstairs lifting,” Nick said, not even lifting his head. “And Jackie is working.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. You’re supposed to be watching her.”

“Hey, I tried. She won’t come out of her office.”

“Where’s Isabelle?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“She wouldn’t say. Said it was a secret.”

“You’re really running a tight ship here.”

“Hey, it’s your house.”

Alex got up, leaving them behind and heading to Jackie’s office, not even bothering to knock. She was bent over a stack of papers, glasses on, hair piled on top of her head, a pen shoved in it, another clamped between her teeth. “Jackie.” He shut the door behind him. “What the hell are you doing?”

She looked up, spitting the pen out. “Just going over your schedule. You know you have to check into the MGM day after tomorrow.”

“I know. You need to relax.”

She sighed, pushing her chair back from her desk. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just feel more stressed about this one. Not the fight and not you, but there are a lot of moving parts that all have to come together in the next few days.”

“That’s why we have the briefing on the twenty-sixth. Jackie, this is not our first rodeo.”

She took her glasses off, putting them down on the blotter and rubbing her hands over her eyes. “I’m more worried about the Isabelle thing.”

“The Isabelle thing.” His heart dropped. “What does that mean?”

“Well, you know her contract is almost up.” Yes, it was all he had been thinking about. “So she’s going to move out and, you know… like, go back to her real life.”

“This could be her real life.”

Jackie leaned forward, putting her elbows on the desk. “Are you going to tell her?”

He took a deep breath, knowing that he had to tell Jackie. “Yes.”

“Oh my god.” She sat back. “I’m a matchmaking genius.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We have no idea how she feels, no idea what she might want. It’s not like this is a normal start to a relationship. We’ve lived together and kissed and slept in the same bed and had weirder experiences than most couples do. It’s not a done deal.”

Jackie hesitated. “I may… have some idea of how she feels.”

He practically lunged across the desk at her. “You have to tell me.”

“She hasn’t said anything to me, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Goddammit, Jackie. “But I know her. She’s my best friend. And all of this, the way she acts, the things she says, none of that is fake. She’s the most authentic person I know, and if she’s acting like she likes you, I can promise you that it’s not just for the cameras.” 

“So you think I should go for it?”

“Yes. I’ve thought that since the beginning. I definitely thought it before you ever did.”

“Even at the very beginning when you were sitting in that restaurant telling me not to have sex with her because that would be sketchy?”

“Well, have you?”

“No!” he said indignantly. 

“Then I’m not seeing the problem. Be happy. Find your love. Take a vacation. Ride a moped. Just do something for yourself that doesn’t involve your career. You haven’t had a break in five years.”

“Ride a moped? Where are we taking this hypothetical vacation?”

“Greece. Didn’t you see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?”

“What do you think?” Jackie snorted. “Besides, we’re going on our vacation first, remember?”

“Like I could forget. I’m gonna book that vacation ringside after you win.” 

“Deal.” He stood up to leave, pausing to ask one more question. “Hey, where is Iz?”

Jackie had already put her glasses back on, diving back into her paperwork. “Out. Doing Christmas stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Get out.”

He didn’t see Isabelle for the rest of the day, which was kind of disappointing because it was a holiday and he had been looking forward to spending some time with her. Then again, he did fall asleep around seven o’clock, totally exhausted and looking forward to having tomorrow off. 

And then she came into his room around midnight, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. “Alex,” she hissed into his ear, shaking him. “Alex, wake up!”

He jerked awake, sitting up quickly and barely missing smacking her in the face with his head as she leaned over him. “What’s wrong?” he said groggily. “Are you okay?”

“I just missed you,” she said, her voice low.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Your mom is next door.”

“Oh. Right.” He lifted up the covers, letting her crawl in beside him and settle herself against his side. “Did you have a good day?”

“I wish I had been here with you guys. That’s what I get for procrastinating.” She shoved her hands under his back, trying to warm them up. The girl was perpetually cold, no matter how warm Alex kept the apartment. “You can go back to sleep if you want. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She rested her chin on his chest, reaching across him for the Apple TV remote and turning the television on. 

He couldn’t fall back asleep now that she was there, felt like his skin was on fire where it was touching her. He had spent so long compartmentalizing their relationship in his brain, making sure he didn’t cross any lines, that now that there was an end in sight it felt like meeting her all over again. 

“Are you nervous?” she asked him suddenly, turning the volume on the television down a couple of clicks. “For the fight?”

He hesitated, thinking about the question. “I don’t know if nervous is the right word. At this point, I’ve done everything I can do and I know what I deserve.”

She sat up, leaving his side cold, and crossed her legs, looking down at him. “That’s crazy to me,” she said. “You’re about to go fight in front of twenty thousand people and you’re not nervous.”

He sat up too, pulling the blankets up with him, leaning on his side on the pile of pillows behind him. “I can’t imagine doing anything else. This is all I have.” Isabelle reached out, tracing the Viking shield on his shoulder with her fingers. 

“You have me,” she said, her voice raspy. “I know that’s not what you mean, but… you do. Just so you know.”

It was taking every ounce of self-control he had not to blurt out what he wanted to say. “What happens when this is all over?” he asked instead, reaching up to grab her hand. “What happens on January first?”

She looked down. “I don’t… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”

He cleared his throat. “Me too.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

They sat there in comfortable silence, Alex eventually laying down, putting his head in her lap. He didn’t remember falling asleep, just knew that they stayed like that for a long time, her fingers stroking through his hair until he drifted away.

Isabelle was still there the next morning when Natalie burst through the door, screaming that it was Christmas morning, the sight of the two of them in bed together stopping her in her tracks. “What’s going on, big brother?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. He blinked at her, pulling the blankets up.

“Uh… nothing?”

“Mm-hmm.” Natalie was clearly unconvinced. “Get up. It’s present time.”

None of the Ludwigs had a ton of self-control or patience when it came to holidays, especially Christmas. When they were little, Alex could remember his mother threatening to lock them all in their rooms if they woke her up before seven o’clock on Christmas morning. 

“Iz,” he said softly, nudging her. She rolled over, taking one of his pillows with her. “Iz, wake up.”

“Too early,” she groaned, pulling the pillow over her head. “What time is it?”

Alex leaned over, grabbing his phone from the night stand. “Almost seven.”

“Alex, that is ludicrous. It’s a holiday, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m telling you - if you don’t get up, my entire family will come in here and carry you out.”

“Fine, fine,’ she grumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “But I would like the record to reflect that this is ridiculous.”

“Whatever you want.” Alex grinned at her, sitting up and swinging his legs onto the floor, stretching and feeling every single bone in his spine pop. He could not wait to get to the chiropractor’s. 

Everyone was already in the living room when they finally made it downstairs, his mom alone in the kitchen, the smell of bacon filling the apartment. “You made it!” Nick said, sitting on the couch next to Jackie, who had a giant cup of coffee in her hands. “It took you long enough.”

“This is Isabelle’s first Christmas with us,” Alex said, knowing that he was implying it wouldn’t be her last. Leven, sprawled across Mark’s lap, raised an eyebrow at him. “She needs a little time to adjust.” He wandered over into the kitchen, pouring coffee for Isabelle and dumping a bunch of milk in it, just the way she liked it. 

“You all should start opening,” his mom said, taking charge and giving Jackie a well-deserved break for once. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

Opening presents in the Ludwig family was a controlled chaos situation. It usually started with Natalie throwing presents at people across the room until Nick screamed at her to stop. Once he had tackled her almost into the tree when she threw a Willow Tree figurine across the room that he had bought for their mom.

Soon enough, they were surrounded by shreds of wrapping paper and bows and tissue paper, littering the floor like snow. Jackie practically split their eardrums, shrieking when she opened her Love bracelet from Alex. Thankfully, Isabelle had opened hers a few seconds earlier or the surprise would have been ruined.

“Alex,” she said, her legs slung across his lap, their backs up against the couch, Jackie and Dayo sitting behind them. “This is too much. This and the computer? Come on.”

“It’s not,” he said, pulling his new Nike sweatshirt from Sophia over his head, running a hand through his hair. “Honestly, it’s not enough. You’ve done a lot for me.” He took it from her, fiddling with it for a second before putting it on her wrist, using the tiny screwdriver to lock it into place. She grabbed his hand before he could pull away, blinking up at him from underneath her eyelashes.

“Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand. “But now I don’t feel like I got you something that great.”

He smirked at her. “It’s not over yet.” He leaned over, fishing an envelope out from under her pile of presents, her name scribbled on the front.

“Wait, me first,” she said, pushing a thin, silver-wrapped present towards him. “It’s nothing like what you got me, so don’t get too excited.”

He ripped it open, sticking pieces of tape onto her sweatpants as he went. Once it was unwrapped, it flipped it over, pulling his glasses off the collar of his shirt to see it better. It was the picture of the two of them from the club, Isabelle looking up at him adoringly. His heart felt like it was beating a million miles a minute. 

“It’s perfect, Iz,” he said, his voice low, hoping that his nosy family was too preoccupied to be listening to them right now.

“You said once that you think everyone likes you for your job or your cars or this house or your money. And I just want you to remember that that’s not what I see when I look at you.”

He cleared his throat, trying to swallow around the lump forming. “No?”

“You’re a really great fucking person, Alexander. You forget that.”

He swung his arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his side and resting forehead against the top of her head briefly before letting go, not wanting his mom to get any big ideas. “Thank you.” He cracked his knuckles, handing her the envelope. “Now you.”

She opened it carefully, like something was going to jump out and bite her, taking out the folded pages and reading them, her eyes moving back and forth. He watched her, waiting for a reaction. “No,” she said, reaching out and hitting him in the chest, still focused on the papers. “You did not do this.”

“Sure did.”

“No, you did not.”

Jackie leaned over their shoulders, trying to see what was going on. “What did he do?”

“I’m going to Paris,” Isabelle shrieked, thrusting the papers into Jackie’s face who grabbed them, looking at the airplane ticket. “Oh my god!”

“You said you hadn’t seen your sister in a while,” Alex said. “So I called her.”

Isabelle threw herself into his lap, hugging him so tightly around his neck that for a brief moment, it felt like one of Mark’s rear naked chokes. “Oh my god,” she kept repeating over and over again, her face buried in his neck, and it felt like she was crying, water droplets sliding down the back of his shirt. Finally she pulled back, wiping her eyes on his sweatshirt as she did. “Now I really don’t feel like I did enough.” She jumped up. “Close your eyes and wait here.”

He did as he was told, but opened one eye a crack when he felt her get off his lap, disappearing into Jackie’s office. “Close them,” Jackie said, flicking him in the back of his neck.

“Do you know what’s going on here?”

“Of course I do. I know everything.”

“Tell me.”

“No way.”

“Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me.”

“Just wait five more seconds and you’ll find out.”

“Oh my god,” he heard Natalie scream from the other side of the living room. “Shut up!”

“Keep them closed, Alex, or I swear to God I will end you.”

“Are you ready?” Isabelle asked, leaning down next to him.

“Ready.”

There was a sudden heavy weight on his lap, and then something wet touching his face. He opened his eyes to find a German Shepherd puppy climbing up onto his chest, licking his face. “It’s a puppy!” Isabelle squealed, her face lit up like sunshine. 

The little ball of fur took off around the living room, jumping onto the couches and flying through the wrapping paper strewn across the floor. “Holy shit,” Alex said, standing up to hug Isabelle. “Iz, thank you!”

“Do you like?”

“I love.” He reached down to scoop up the puppy. “What’s his name?”

“Bear,” she said. “After you.” This girl was trying to kill him. “I was going to let you name him but Jackie said that you wouldn’t be able to decide for months and then she would have to do it.”

“Yeah, that sounds about accurate.”

An hour later, all of the present detritus was cleaned up and they had eaten, Bear scampering around their feet underneath the table to scoop up pieces of dropped (purposely, in Isabelle’s case) bacon. Alex wasn’t sure if he had ever been happier, surrounded by his family and his friends, and all the thoughts of the fight were wiped from his mind for a few hours.

* * *

“I have one more present for you,” Isabelle whispered to him later that night. Everyone was watching Christmas movies in the living room, piled on the couches and the chairs and on the floor, blankets surrounding them and the fireplace on. “But I can’t give it to you here.”

“Uh oh, that sounds menacing.”

“Not menacing. Christmassy.” She stood up, grabbing his hand, and he was glad that everyone was in a food coma so that they wouldn’t notice the two of them leaving together, so that he could finally have one moment alone with her. 

He thought they were going up to his room, but she bypassed the bedrooms completely, pulling him up the stairs to the third floor and stopping him before they got to the top. “Okay, close your eyes,” Isabelle said, and he complied willingly, moving carefully up the last few steps, her hand wrapped around his arm to keep him from falling.

Alex could smell the chlorine, saw lights flickering behind his closed eyelids. 

“What’s going on, Iz?”

“Okay,” she said, her fingers moving down to his, holding on tight. “Open your eyes.”

When he opened them, all he saw was white. There were white lights twinkling around the perimeter of the room, strung over the windows and looped around the chairs, the stars shining bright above them. There was fake snow all over the tile, glittering and piled up in mounds. Paper snowflakes littered the room, and candles floated on the surface of the water.

“Iz…” he said, turning in circles, almost unable to say anything. “What is this?”

“You said you missed the snow at Christmas,” she said, looking up at him. “So I wanted to bring it to you.”

Honestly, it was even better than having snow for Christmas, Alex thought as he looked down at her, the pool lights dancing off her face and reflected in her eyes. “I don’t… know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said, pulling him over to a pile of white, fluffy blankets on the floor. “Just sit here with me.”

He sat down next to her, the floor cold through the blankets but the air warm around them, slinging an arm over her shoulder. Isabelle put her head on his shoulder, swinging her legs across his lap. It was crazy to Alex, thinking back now, that two months he didn’t know Isabelle, two months ago all he did was eat and sleep and fight. And now he didn’t feel like himself if he wasn’t with her, wasn’t touching her, wasn’t falling asleep next to her.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when you have to go,” he said, not looking down at her, not wanting to see the look on her face in case it wasn’t what he was hoping for.

“Maybe…” She hesitated, and he cleared his throat, trying to fill the silence but just making it more awkward. “Maybe I don’t have to go.”

“What do you mean?”

She pulled her legs back, sitting up and facing him, swinging one leg over him and settling herself onto his lap. She slipped her arms around the back of his neck, her fingers falling over his pressure point, his heart beating under her hand. “I could stay,” she said softly. “All you have to do is ask.”

He swallowed hard, thoughts swirling around the inside of his brain - January first and Jackie’s encouragement and everything he had been through with this beautiful girl. He realized after a few moments that he had to say something, that she was waiting for him.

“I…” He cleared his throat again, trying to get the words out. “I want you to stay.”

“Yeah?” She smiled at him, her hair falling across one eye and curling down her back.

“Yes.”

Alex knew it was coming, but it wasn’t any less surprising when she kissed him. It wasn’t like the other times: not showy like it had been for the paparazzi, not over the top like it had been for Kat, not even like the kiss in his bed, both of them drunk and sloppy. This time it was just for them, intense and needy. And unlike the other times, he didn’t hesitate, not even for a second, spreading his hands across her back and pulling her as close as she could get.

She bit his bottom lip, pulling back and looking at him, her eyes glassy. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered, stealing the breath out of his mouth. “This whole time, I’ve been waiting. You can’t take a hint, you know.”

“How was I supposed to know?” 

“I sleep with you every night, Alex!” 

He laughed, the memory of her pulling back when he kissed her the last time running through his brain, just for a second. And then she pushed him onto his back, her hair falling across his face, running her hands up his chest and under his shirt.

It wasn’t what he had been planning, and it certainly wasn’t what he had expected. He’d had a plan, but count on Isabelle to circumvent that completely, taking him by surprise and pulling him along with her. It seemed like that was just what she did, and honestly, he felt like his life could do with a bit more surprise in it.

She kissed him for a long time, her hands moving over him lightly, making it even harder for him to breathe. He still didn’t really know what he was expecting, his brain short circuiting when she sat up, pulling her shirt off over her head. “Oh my god, Isabelle,” he groaned, reaching out to touch her.

Alex was well aware that not only was his entire team sitting in his living room two floors below them, but so was his entire family. And he just couldn’t get himself to care. He rolled over, flipping Isabelle onto her back and pulling his own shirt off, dropping it on the ground next to them. The stars were shining off her skin, points of light bright in her eyes as she looked up at him.

She grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down towards her, and he knew that he could say without a doubt that this was the best night of his life. Not when he had signed his UFC contract. Not when he had won the belt. This, right here, this was it. This was what he had been waiting for. 

* * *

It didn’t seem real to Alex until he woke up in his bed next to her the next morning. Admittedly, that was not a new thing, but everything had changed between them the night before, and it felt different. Isabelle was already awake, her head propped up on her elbow, hair falling around her shoulders. “Hey,” she said.

He stretched his bad shoulder, hearing it pop. “Hey.”

She got right to the point. “Have you changed your mind? About us? About… last night?”

Alex didn’t answer, chose instead to roll towards her and kiss her, pushing her back into the pillows. Every single morning he woke up next to her he had wanted to do this, and now he could, without thinking about it or having to stop himself. So no, he had absolutely not changed his mind. 

Bear jumped up in between them, wagging his tail and pushing them apart, crawling up onto Alex’s pillow and shattering the moment, which was only further shattered by Jackie pounding on the door.

“Alex! Why is this locked?”

“I… uh…” Why did he feel like he was back in high school, getting in trouble by his mom? He was twenty-seven years old, for fuck’s sake. He reached down onto the floor by the bed, feeling around for his boxers. “One sec!”

“Alexander Ludwig. Open the door this second.”

Isabelle disappeared into the bathroom, pulling Alex’s shirt over her head as she went. He opened the door, leaning against the frame and clearing his throat. “What’s up?”

Jackie looked around him suspiciously, Bear hopping around her feet. “What are you doing?”

“Sleeping. Is there something that you need?”

“Get ready to go. We’re leaving for the Grand in an hour.” She took Bear with her, throwing one more frown back over her shoulder at him as she left. She definitely knew something was going on; she wouldn’t be Jackie if she couldn’t get dangerously close to reading his mind.

They hadn’t gone back downstairs the night before, ended up sneaking down to Alex’s room, stopping to make out in the stairwell before realizing that any one of the people in the living room could find them at any moment. They tumbled into his bed, the room dark around them and the street lit up beneath them. Jackie texted Alex three times in a row, and he reached over to his nightstand blindly, turning his phone off and knocking a box of condoms on the floor in the process. 

The door had barely shut before Isabelle was behind him, pushing him up against it, her palms flat against his chest. “Well, that wasn’t obvious at all.” She grinned up at him, her fingers slipping under the waistband of his boxers.

“Shut up,” he said, running his hands down her sides and picking her up, locking the door again and walking them back towards the bed. Surely Jackie wouldn’t mind if they were a little bit late, and if she did, well… Alex really couldn’t get himself to care right now.

They were more than a little late, coming down the stairs an hour and a half later, freshly showered and dragging their suitcases. Thankfully, his family had gone to breakfast so he didn’t have to worry about facing them too. Jackie and Dayo were hunched over the counter, papers spread out in front of them.

Mercifully, Jackie didn’t say anything, even though Alex was positive she knew exactly what was going on. “Are you all ready?” she asked, tapping her stack of papers on the counter to get them in order.

Alex knew everything was about to change; it always did once they got this close to the fight. Moving into the hotel was a benchmark moment for his team, and they all knew that he would start to pull back, closing in on himself until the fight was over. He was really hoping Jackie had sat down with Isabelle, told her what to expect, although he wasn’t entirely sure at this point that he wanted Jackie anywhere near her, knowing she would sniff out exactly what was going on.

He didn’t think he was ready for her to know. Obviously she wasn’t completely in the dark; she knew how he felt, how he had been feeling for weeks now. But this wasn’t how he had planned it, and it seemed like a secret, like if he said the words out loud, maybe everything he had would disappear. And now that he knew what it was like, being with this beautiful girl, he wasn’t going to risk ruining it for anything.

He took a deep breath, trying to push all the thoughts of Isabelle and last night out of his mind. He had work to do. “Ready.”


	10. straight up from nothing we go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / straight up from nothing we go  
> / higher than the highest skyscrapers  
> / no little league, we major  
> / the proof is in the paper  
> good life by g-eazy and kehlani

The MGM Grand Las Vegas was right down the street from the T-Mobile Arena where the fights were held, and all of the pre-fight events were at the hotel. Alex stayed there every single time he had a Vegas fight. It was nice to not have to worry about being on time or getting through the crowds of people that were flooding into Vegas for the fight, even if the hotel was swarming with them. There were people everywhere when they pulled up in front of the hotel in their caravan of cars, Alex and Isabelle in the lead in the McLaren, Jackie and the boys behind them. Cameras were everywhere, lights flashing, and people were pushing up against the metal barriers, screaming and waving their phones.

Alex got out of the McLaren, heading around to the other side to help Isabelle out. Valets surrounded them, pulling out their suitcases and garment bags and loading them onto a cart to take them into the hotel. This certainly wasn’t a new experience for Alex, but it definitely was for Isabelle, and her eyes were wide as he ushered her out of the car, splaying his hand across her back.

Jackie jumped out of the Escalade, hurrying up to Alex and pushing him towards the hotel, letting him stop for a couple of quick photos before they got through the giant doors and everything got a tiny bit quieter.

They all crammed into the elevator, shooting up towards the skyloft. It was Alex’s good luck suite, and Jackie had booked it the second he had gotten off the phone with Dana to schedule the fight. It was a ridiculous room: six thousand square feet, two stories, three bedrooms, private bar, infinity edge tub, immersion shower, the works. Completely over the top, but he couldn’t help himself. Besides, having his whole team stay with him always made him feel better, less nervous.

“Holy shit,” Isabelle said as they pushed through the double doors, the suite opening up in front of them, lofted ceilings rising high over their heads. “This place makes your apartment look like a craphole.”

“Believe me, if I could just move in here, I would.”

Jackie didn’t give them any time to settle in, sitting them down at the big conference table and shoving a schedule in front of Alex. “You have your last chiropractor’s appointment tomorrow at nine o’clock,” she said. Drug test on the twenty-eighth before press day starts. Your taped interview starts at ten.” Isabelle leaned over his shoulder, looking at the piece of paper. “Unofficial weigh-in at nine o’clock on the twenty-ninth. Official weigh-in on the thirtieth at eight p.m.”

“Don’t forget,” Dayo said, leaning back in his chair. “Hard cut starts today.” Right. Like he could ever forget. “You’re running a little heavy, but we’ll do a couple of baths and a sauna and you should be okay.”

Isabelle hooked her chin over his shoulder, running her hand up his leg under the table where no one could see it, and he grabbed her fingers before she could get into dangerous territory. She blinked at him innocently. Jesus Christ. She really was trying to kill him.

“Isabelle,” Jackie said, turning to her, and Isabelle smiled at her, pressing her lips together in what Alex could only describe as a shit-eating grin.

“Yes?”

“Unless we tell you otherwise, you’re gonna be glued to Alex’s side all week. We’re in the home stretch now.”

“You got it, boss.”

They dispersed throughout the skyloft, Alex going up to the bathroom to weigh himself. One ninety-five, just what he’d thought. Screw Dayo for saying he was coming in heavy. He glanced out the window at the crowd of people gathered below, tiny like ants. He wondered if Dominic was here yet; he hadn’t felt a cold chill surround the hotel, so he could only assume that he was not.

Alex lay down on the bed, balling a pillow up underneath his head and turning the television on, automatically switching the channel to ESPN to watch the pre-fight coverage, even though he knew Jackie would frown on that, would tell him that nothing they were saying would matter and he shouldn’t risk getting in his own head.

There was a soft knock on the door, and it opened a crack, Isabelle sticking her head through. “Can I come in?”

“Why are you asking?” He jerked his head, motioning her inside. “C’mere.”

“I don’t know what your pre-fight ritual is,” she said, shutting the door behind her and crawling on top of him, hands sliding up his shirt. “Like…” She bent her head, kissing his ear and sending shocks down his spine, heat sparking in his stomach. “For example, are you allowed to have sex before you fight?”

He shifted his hips, gripping her waist so tight he was sure she would have bruises, and cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “I mean… not right before, but I… ah, shit, Iz… I don’t see why it would be a problem right now.”

“Good,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Good.”

* * *

Alex had been fighting for almost a decade. He had entered his first amateur fight the second he turned eighteen. This was not his first rodeo. And yet, he apparently could not keep his shit together.

To be fair, he had been a little distracted the last twelve hours, what with the holiday and the hooking up with Isabelle and the fact that he was about to fight in front of twenty thousand people. He ended up falling asleep with Isabelle once they were done, woke up when the sun was low in the sky, his mouth dry and his shoulder hurting. He could hear the shower running, Isabelle’s stuff already scattered all over the room.

The hard cut had officially started. He opened the bathroom door, a rush of steam hitting him in the face. “Iz?” He couldn’t see her through the frosted glass walls of the shower,

“Yes?”

“Hey.”

She opened the shower door, sticking her head out. “What are you doing?”

“Gonna take a salt bath,” he said, leaning over the tub and turning it on, making the water as hot as he could stand it. It was almost full when he realized that the bag of Epsom salt was sitting in the pantry. “Oh fuck.”

The shower turned off, Isabelle reaching out and grabbing her towel off the hook next to the door. “What’s up?”

Alex turned the water off, shaking his head in frustration and draining the tub. “I have to run back to the apartment.”

“Okay.” She came over to him, looking up at him, water droplets shivering on her eyelashes. “Do you want me to come with?”

Always, but he wasn’t going to do that to her. “No, you stay. It’s crazy outside, and it’s only going to get crazier.”

“Okay.” She kissed him, like that was totally normally, like he couldn’t hear his heart thumping in his ears every time she touched him. “Drive safe.”

He hadn’t told her yet, that he was in love with her. He was going to, as soon as he won the fight, as soon as he could come up with something worthy of her. But he knew that he was, and last night had only served to solidify that even more. He had almost blurted it out, the words bubbling into his mouth, but he realized at the last possible second that saying it in the middle of sex was too cliche, even for him.

Alex was so busy thinking about Isabelle that he almost completely missed Dominic. He was waiting in the lobby for his car to be brought up, shoving his phone into his pocket and pulling on a beanie when someone knocked into him, sending a shooting pain up his elbow. He didn’t even recognize Dominic at first because the kid looked so emaciated and had his hood pulled up, sunglasses on. Clearly his own weight cut was not treating him well.

“What the fuck, Ludwig?” he asked, his voice gravelly, and that’s when Alex finally realized who he was.

He stopped, narrowing his eyes. “You need something?”

Alex could see security circling, knew that Dana was incredibly serious about his fighters keeping their shit together until they got into the ring, knew that he couldn’t beat the shit out of Dominic right now no matter how badly he wanted to.

“No, but you’re gonna when I take the belt.”

Alex just rolled his eyes, turning away and pushing through the lobby doors, met by screaming fans and pops of light from the cameras. The McLaren was sitting there, engine rumbling, and he slipped the valet a couple of bills, climbing in the front seat and leaving everything in his rearview mirror.

The apartment was weirdly quiet when he got there, Bear running up to greet him. He scooped up the puppy, holding him up in the air. “Where is everyone?” he asked him. His mom and sisters were staying at the apartment that week, but they were nowhere to be seen. He put Bear down, grabbing the Epsom salt from the pantry and putting it on the counter. God forbid he forget it again.

Bear ran off, scampering up the stairs. “Wait!” Alex said, dropping his keys on the counter and taking off after him. “Seriously, where the hell is everyone?” He got up to the top of the stairs, Bear scratching at Jackie’s door. Alex had been in such a rush to get out of the hotel that he didn’t realize until this moment that Jackie hadn’t been in the skyloft.

“Jaq?” He knocked, immediately pushing the door open, like she did to him every single day. He didn’t know what he was expecting, thought for a second that maybe she had come back to pick up some more clothes or get some peace and quiet away from the craziness at the hotel, but he realized very quickly that she wasn’t alone and she certainly wasn’t wearing clothes.

“Jackie, what the fuck?” He knew he should be turning around or closing his eyes or something, but it was like he was frozen, his brain completely shutting down.

“Alex!” She jumped up, mercifully grabbing the sheet and holding it in front of her, pushing him out of the room. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing? What are you doing?” It had all happened so fast, but Dayo was a hard guy to miss, and honestly - what the fuck was going on? Jackie slammed the door behind them, leaving Dayo in her bed, his eyes wide, and hiked the sheet up. “Jackie… he’s my head coach!”

“I know!” she hissed at him, pushing him down the hall and into his room. “But you have to stop screaming!”

“No one is screaming!”

“Alex!”

He sat down on his bed, putting his head in his hands, Bear jumping up beside him and pushing his cold nose into Alex’s leg. He looked up at Jackie. “Explain.”

Alex had given her a lot of shit over the last five years about Dayo, always making fun of her for how nervous she was around him at the beginning, for how much time they spent together, for their standing Friday night dinner. But he had never really thought anything of it, thought that they were just friends and coworkers, united in their goal to keep Alex’s life on track. He hadn’t actually thought they were doing anything.

Apparently, he had been very mistaken.

“Stay right here,” Jackie said, leaving him and Bear behind on the bed, disappearing for all of thirty seconds before reappearing fully dressed, thank God. “Okay.” She sat down next to him on the bed, crossing her legs and tucking her hair behind her ears. “You’re mad.”

“I’m not mad.” He rubbed his temple, feeling a massive headache coming on.

“Then what are you?”

“I don’t know, Jackie! He’s my fucking coach. We’re in fucking fight camp.”

“I know. I know. The timing sucks.”

“How long?”

She looked down, running a finger along the seam of her leggings. “Six months.”

Alex legitimately thought he might throw up right there on his bed. “Six months? Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

Jackie had been his best friend for five years. She was as much his sister as Natalie or Sophia, the biggest part of his team, the one person he had always been able to count on no matter what. She had been there from the very beginning. She had made him. And in doing so, she had given up a lot, moved to Vegas with him, away from her friends and family. She didn’t date; she didn’t have a social life; she spent all of her time in Alex’s world.

So he would be the biggest asshole ever to deny her a relationship.

“Is it serious?”

Another pause. “Yes.”

“Then why did you hide it from me?”

“You don’t react to change well.”

She was not wrong. He was infamously resistant to change; even convincing him to move out of that shitty little house had taken Jackie months and months of work. He really did not deserve her.

“Who else knows?”

She shot him a look. “No one.” Bear crawled into her lap, settling down and resting his head on her knee, staring up at Alex and making him feel guilty. He was so wrapped up in his own life that he wouldn’t have noticed something was going on if Jackie had hit him over the head with it.

He scooted closer to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You’re the love of my life, Jackie. You know that. You could’ve told me. You should’ve told me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide big parts of your life from me. That’s not who we are.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, petting Bear absentmindedly. “I was going to. After the fight. When it started, I didn’t know what it was or if it would last and then we were getting closer and closer to this week and I didn’t want to do anything to distract you.”

“It wouldn’t have distracted me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, maybe. But not in a bad way.”

She pulled back, looking up at him, her hair falling over his arm. “What’s going on with you and Isabelle?”

Ah, fuck. “Nothing.”

“You’re a liar.”

“We had sex,” he said, not meeting Jackie’s eye. “Last night. And this morning. And just now at the Grand.”

“Alex!” She punched him in the arm, hard enough for it to sting. “Oh my God!”

“I know. There is… a lot happening.” He stood up, rolling his shoulder. “I’m just gonna roll with it until after Wednesday and then I’ll deal with it.”

She lay back, Bear climbing on her chest. “Same.”

* * *

They were all up bright and early the next day, Alex’s alarm going off before the sun was even peeking over the horizon. “Alex,” Isabelle groaned, shoving a sharp elbow into his side. “Turn it off.” He had barely slept, the pre-fight nerves sitting in his stomach like a rock, dragging him down and keeping him awake all night, tossing and turning. He grabbed his phone, silencing the alarm and swinging his legs onto the ground, rubbing his eyes.

Dayo was already in the kitchen when he got downstairs, messing with the coffee maker. He could never figure the damn thing out; they went through this every time they stayed at the skyloft. “Move,” Alex said, elbowing him out of the way and opening the top. He didn’t know what to say about what had happened yesterday, didn’t really want to bring it up.

“We good?” Dayo asked, head down.

“We’re good.” Alex looked up, meeting Dayo’s eyes, knowing that they would figure it out eventually.

“Good.” Dayo sat down at the counter, buttering a piece of toast. Alex’s stomach growled loudly, and he tried to ignore it. “You should go hit the treadmill this morning, but don’t lift or anything. We’re just gonna focus on the cardio until we get your weight down.”

Alex grabbed two coffee mugs out of the cabinet, sliding one over in front of Dayo. Jackie came bustling into the kitchen, blatantly refusing to make eye contact with Dayo, and Alex had to turn around to keep her from noticing his poor attempts to hide his smirk. “You need to go to down to the big conference room this morning,” Jackie told him, flipping through her notebook. “They want you to sign some posters and take some pictures.”

“Will Dominic be there?” he asked, pulling the coffee pot out from under the stream and sticking his cup in, waiting for it to fill up.

“He will not be. Dana doesn’t want you around each other until the official weigh in, for some shocking reason.”

Alex took a big sip, wincing at how hot it was. “Good.”

He went down to the lobby after he did a couple of miles on the treadmill, the cameras following him and Isabelle by his side. Heidi, the UFC event manager, was already waiting for him, giving him a big hug as he walked in, introducing herself to Isabelle. There was a table set up waiting for him, piles of fight posters stacked everywhere. He sat down, grabbing the Sharpie and scribbling his name across each of them in turn, Isabelle making a pile of the signed ones off to the side, her hair brushing his shoulder every time she moved.

After he finished signing his name what felt like three hundred times, Heidi ushered them into the room next door, Jackie waiting there with his official fight shirt and his gloves, the belt sitting on the table behind her. Alex was used to this, used to the bustle and the excitement that filled the hotel leading up to the fight, but it still always felt like something he just had to get through.

“I knew I was going to be here someday,” he said, sitting down with the cameraman after all the promo pictures had been taken. “You know, I put in the work and I made it. So it feels almost… peaceful.”

They all piled into the Escalade once the promotional work was done to make the drive out of the city to the chiropractor’s office, the cameraman in the front seat, Jackie and Dayo and Isabelle having a slap fight in the back over who had to sit in the middle (“You’re the shortest, Isabelle. If you think I can fit my legs in the middle, you are out of your mind.”) and who was sitting on Isabelle’s seatbelt (“Dayo, move! Why are you just deadass staring at me? Get off my damn seatbelt!”).

Alex’s shoulder had been hurting more during this fight camp than any other he’d had in a long time, ever since the first time he had torn it. He wasn’t sure why, hadn’t been doing anything differently, but had had to really cut back on the intensity of his weight lifting. He was hoping his chiropractor could do something today to make it feel stronger, but that wasn’t the only reason he had this appointment.

Alex shrugged off his coat, laying down on the table in front of Ian, and he rubbed his leg, kneading the muscles under his fingers. “You tear your body down in training,” he said to the cameras. He rolled over onto his stomach as Ian tapped his back, stretching his arms down towards the floor and wincing as Ian pushed his leg into a weird position, cracking his back.

“We’re breaking down everything he tore up during camp,” Ian said, planting a hand in the middle of Alex’s back and pushing, a loud pop filling the room.

“Jesus,” Isabelle said, wrinkling her nose.

“Oh, it’s about to get much worse.”

“Jackie. Zip it.”

Ian did a lot of work on Alex’s shoulder, dropping a hammer into his hand and having him hold onto it, pointing it in different directions. He could feel the muscles in his shoulder straining, trying to push all of the bad thoughts out of his brain and concentrate on making them stronger. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, biting his lip and trying to remember to breathe.

“It’s called a cranial facial release,” Ian explained to the cameraman as he moved Alex onto his back, stretching his legs out and turning around to pull the equipment out of a drawer.

“And it’s disgusting,” he heard Jackie mutter to Isabelle. He shot her a look.

“What is it?” Isabelle asked, leaning forward.

“We’re gonna put a balloon in his nose,” Ian said. “It’ll open up his nasal passages so he can maximize his oxygen intake for the fight.” Ian showed the balloon to the camera.

“The worst part is getting it in there,” Alex said, basically daring Jackie to pipe up with a “that’s what she said,” which she mercifully did not. He lay his head back, watching as Ian put the balloon onto the end of what looked like a little squeeze ball, holding Alex’s nose open with a little metal stick and pushing the balloon in. He took a deep breath, flexing his arms as he tried not to move.

“Almost there,” Ian muttered, leaning over him. “Deep breath in.”

He took a deep breath and knew immediately that something was wrong, thought he was going to throw up all over the table and the floor and himself. There was a loud squeaking nose, and he sat up, coughing the balloon out into his hand and showing it to the camera, eyes watering. Ian burst out laughing.

“Holy shit,” Dayo said. “It went all the way through.”

“Whoops,” Ian said. “That was not what was supposed to happen.”

Alex was practically crying, pulling up his t-shirt to rub at his eyes. “Holy shit,” he said, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. “Damn.”

Ian grabbed another balloon, getting ready to do the second passage. The camera shook slightly as the cameraman laughed; they had seen Alex do this a dozen times, and it had definitely never turned out like that.

“It felt like a bunch of snot or something,” Alex said, laying back down on the table. “And then there’s a balloon in my hand.”

“Well, at least you know that one passage is open,” Isabelle said, and everyone laughed.

The second one went more smoothly, the balloon inflating, Alex’s head feeling like it was about to explode for a second before Ian pulled it out. “There we go. Much better.”

“Can you tell a difference right away?” Isabelle asked.

“Immediately,” he said, taking a deep breath through his nose. “Breathing better, like I got a whole new set of lungs.”

Ian gave him a hug before they walked out. “Get ‘em, brother. Let’s do it. I’m proud of you and I’ll see you soon.”

Late that night, they set up their own gym in one of the conference rooms on the main floor of the hotel, spreading the mats out and piling into the room. Isabelle sat close to Alex as he wrapped his hands, watching him spin the tape around his wrists and palm, flexing his fingers.

“I got to see his dream come true,” Nick was saying to the cameras. “You know, growing up this was all he really wanted and now we’re here.”

Alex did some sparring with Dayo and some grappling with Mark, danced around Nick and dodged his punches, concentrating on his footwork. Isabelle sat with her back up against the wall, head on Jackie’s shoulder, watching him.

Four more days.

Alex started off press day by peeing into a cup and getting a needle stuck into his arm, which was not his idea of a great five thirty in the morning wake up call. Thankfully, the cameras weren’t around to see how cranky he was, or even worse, how cranky Isabelle was when Jackie came in to wake him up and bring him down to the kitchen.

“What does the schedule look like for today?” he asked Jackie once they were gone, pressing a gauze pad into the crook of his elbow to stop the trickle of blood.

‘You have to be down in the lobby by ten o’clock ready to go,” she said, flipping through her notebook, pages falling out everywhere. He should’ve gotten her a new one for Christmas, but she was so damn picky about what fucking planners she liked. “And you need to get your weight down to one eighty-five by tonight.”

Alex groaned inwardly. The last few pounds were always the hardest. He had dropped five since they had checked into the hotel, so there was only another five to go, but he knew it was going to be a pain in the ass, just like always.

Dominic had been out at Top Golf last night with his team and his girlfriend; Alex had seen the pictures on Instagram. And that was why Alex was going to win.

“Alright,” he said, standing up and dropping the gauze pad into the garbage on the way out of his room. “I’m gonna go cut.”

Isabelle had fallen back asleep, sprawled out across the bed, her arm over her face. He so badly wanted to crawl into bed next to her, bury his face in the back of her neck and go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. Just three more days and this would all be over. Three more days and he could have a normal life again.

He shut the door to the bathroom behind him, not wanting the sound of the water to wake her up. He ripped open a bag of salt, dumping it into the tub as it filled with water hot enough to burn him. He stripped down to his underwear, easing himself into the water little by little. All he had to do was sit there and sweat; he was water loaded so it wouldn’t be too difficult to drop the last few pounds, but this was always the worst part for him. It gave him way too much time to get into his own head.

He laid his head back, slapping a wet washcloth over his eyes to dim the bright fluorescents above him. He was zoning out, Parks and Rec blaring in the background, so he didn’t even hear the door open, didn’t see Isabelle push her way into the bathroom, the steam rising up around her.

“Hey,” she said, and he jerked upright, water splashing around him.

“Holy shit. You scared the shit out of me.”

She sat down on the floor next to the tub, resting her arms on the side of it and trailing one hand in the water. “Sorry.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “This is… really fucking hot.”

“I know.” Sweat was dripping off his forehead, and he smirked at her. “You want to come in?”

“I would die.” But she got up on her knees, leaning over the side of the tub, holding her hair up out of the water with one hand and tracing the other along his jaw to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He had just kissed her, was just reaching up to touch her when the door burst open and she jumped up, clearing her throat.

“I… uh… how’s it going?” Dayo asked, rubbing the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at the two of them.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Isabelle said, backing out of the bathroom and winking at him behind Dayo’s back, shutting the door behind her.

“What the fuck, Dayo?” he said, leaning back and putting the washcloth back over his eyes.

“Don’t what the fuck me. What the fuck was that? You two were like shrapnel.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He winced as Dayo turned the tap on, spilling more burning water into the already almost overflowing tub.

He could only manage to stay in for another ten minutes, Dayo helping him out once he started to get a little lightheaded. He spent another twenty minutes laying on the floor of the bathroom, wrapped in towels, wanted to fall back asleep but couldn’t, too many thoughts running through his brain.

His barber came by at nine o’clock to give him a haircut, setting up everything in the bathroom on the main floor. Jackie hovered nervously; she got weirder and weirder the closer they got to Fight Night, and trying to keep her calm on press day was always a chore. Thank God Isabelle was here.

Alex sat down in the chair in front of Jeremy, who turned the clippers on, getting to work right away since they were already running a little behind schedule, which was shocking to no one. “This isn’t just a sport,” Alex said to the cameras as they pushed in closer on his face, Jeremy moving around him quickly. “It’s not just a sport when someone is trying to fuck you up, break your arm, break your jaw.”

Mark stood next to him, taking Snapchat stories and brushing his teeth loudly. “It’s where you feel at home,” he chimed in.

“Yeah, always. Street fighting, at the gym, sparring, it doesn’t matter. That’s where home is for me.” He caught Isabelle’s eye over Mark’s shoulder, shooting her a smile. She was home now too. “And I’ve got a solid team around me, which makes all the difference.”

Once Jeremy was done, Alex stood up, brushing off his shoulders and pulling his shirt over his head. Jackie was already standing right there, his suit bag in one hand, shoes in the other. “Get dressed,” she said, checking her watch. “We need to get down there.”

He took as much time as he possibly could, trying to calm his nerves, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and taking deep breaths. The press stuff never got easier; it was part of the job but it wasn’t who he was. He was a fighter, a brawler, not a spotlight guy, not the golden boy that they tried to make him out to be.

They all piled into the Escalades, Dayo and Jackie and Isabelle and Mark and Nick and the camera crew, making the short drive to the T-Mobile Arena. They were ushered into the side door, moving through the quiet dark hallways of the arena towards the production rooms, and Alex was quickly set up in a chair with a microphone taped to his chest and a camera pointing at him, the room full of people.

Dominic was in the room right next to his, but Alex had managed to stay away from him, could hear his team moving through the hallways. This was just something he had to get through to get to the fight, to get to the moment where he could knock that stupid grin off his face, stand above him and be the champion. He could see Dominic on the monitor, knew Dominic could see him, knew he shouldn’t be fucking with him right now. But he just couldn’t help himself.

“I don’t have to win a decision against him,” he said, answering a question. “I’m gonna knock him out. It won’t go to decision.”

“Oh, please, please, please,” Dominic replied, shaking his head. “I’ve never been knocked out in my life.”

“Well, everyone believes it,” Alex said, cutting him off. “Everyone knows it’s gonna happen.”

“I already told you. You’re gonna wake up from this dream in three days. It’s going to be embarrassing for you.”

Alex was seeing red at this point, could not believe this kid was talking to him like this, and everything he had been holding down for the past two months came bubbling to the surface, ready to explode. “What’s embarrassing for you is that you’re creeping on my girl on social media, talking shit to her instead of to me.”

“Keep your fling on a string, man,” Dominic said, shrugging. Oh, hell no. “She’s obviously the one who wears the pants in the relationship or she wouldn’t have to defend you like that. This is big boy business.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I’ll come over there right fucking now.”

“So do it,” Dominic said cockily. And that was all it took, Alex standing up and pulling out his earpiece, throwing it down on the chair. He was out the door in two seconds, too fast for Jackie or Dayo or Nick to get to him.

He made it out into the hallway, pushing through the crowd of people moving around before Mark caught up to him, Isabelle on his heels. “Stop,” Mark said firmly, putting a hand on Alex’s chest and pushing him backwards. Dayo and Nick caught up to them, Jackie skidding to a stop next to him.

“It’s not worth it,” Dayo said, getting in his face. Alex could barely see straight, his blood pounding in his ears. “This is not worth it.” Dominic’s room was right there, Alex could hear him inside, still running his mouth to the cameras. “He is not worth it.”

“Save it for Fight Night,” Isabelle said, elbowing the guys out of the way, and he looked down at her, finally seeing her, feeling like his muscles were relaxing under his hands. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “Okay.”

* * *

Alex felt great. He had made weight, coming in at one eighty-five point five the morning of the unofficial weigh in. His shoulder wasn’t hurting, his breath capacity was high, and he was ready. But the incident at press day was still circling his mind.

“He called my girlfriend a fling, man,” he said to the cameras as they sat with him in the living room of the skyloft. “He came onto her Instagram talking shit and then blocked her. He’s a coward. That’s what he does.” Isabelle, sitting next to him, squeezed his hand. “But it’s cool. We’re two days away from fucking him up.”

A few minutes later, they headed down to the conference room on the main floor of the hotel that was doubling as the production office. The official scale was set up against one wall, waiting for the fighters to come weigh themselves. Alex stripped his shirt off, standing on the scale and double checking that he was still good.

He did a few rounds of light sparring with the pads in an empty conference room to loosen up his muscles, Dayo circling around him and calling out directions. “Left! Right! Up! Left, left!” The music was blaring, people gathered around the room.

Two hours later, he was back upstairs, in bed with Isabelle. Alex hadn’t had a girlfriend since he started fighting professionally; he wasn’t sure if he could even call Isabelle his girlfriend at this point, but it was definitely a different experience having someone by his side during fight week. He had always figured that having someone around would be a distraction, but Isabelle was anything but. If anything, she was the only thing keeping him calm, always there to whisper in his ear that everything was going to go perfectly, that he was going to win.

“Alex!” Jackie was banging on the door, rattling the handle which, thank God, he had remembered to lock. “Get ready to go!”

The unofficial weigh-in was just for the press, so Alex threw on jeans and a t-shirt, leaving Isabelle alone to shower. “Good luck,” she said, kissing him. “Be good.”

He meant to be good, really, but Dominic was making that difficult, hitting him hard in the shoulder as they passed in the hallway, Alex on his way into the weigh-ins, Dominic on his way out.

Alexander Ludwig  
1:34 PM  
I’m about to cause a scene,  
I’ll text you later

Isabelle Fuhrman  
1:35 PM  
What?

Isabelle Fuhrman  
1:35 PM  
Oh god

Isabelle Fuhrman  
1:35 PM  
Alexander don’t

The cameras started flashing as he walked into the room, clicks filling his ears and immediately making him forget about Dominic. He waited for the officials to check the scale, making sure it was adjusted correctly before stripping down to his underwear. Mark was behind him, belt slung over his shoulder, making sure it was in all of the pictures, just to remind Dominic who was really in charge here.

He stepped on the scale, tightening his stomach muscles. “Right on the money, one eighty-five,” the official said, and he raised his arms, flexing for the cameras. He jumped off the scale after a few seconds, pulling his clothes back on.

Dominic was still in the hallway when he walked out, his entourage behind him. The kid was just trying to fuck with him at this point, and it went far beyond the fight. The cameramen had stepped away, moving down the hall to film Ronda Rousey, but they came running back as soon as they heard the yelling, skidding down the hallway and practically falling in their rush to capture what was going on.

“Little bitch,” Dominic had said to him as Alex passed, and he spun around immediately, turning back and fully intending to throw a punch before Dayo tackled him up against the wall, holding him there with an arm against his throat.

“This is not where we do this!” he was yelling to Alex.

“Come at me!” Alex yelled around him, pushing as hard as he could to get away, but Dayo had been joined by Mark and Nick, and Alex had no chance against the three of them. “You talk so much shit but you won’t back it up! Come at me, motherfucker!”

Dominic flipped his hood up, smirking at him as he turned around, finally moving back down the hallway. “Oh, I’m gonna.”

“I’m fine,” Alex said, shaking Dayo off as soon as Dominic was out of sight around the corner. “I’m fine.”

Jackie was unhappy, Dayo having filled her in the second they got back to the hotel room. “What the hell is going on with you?” she asked him “You never get this riled up before a fight. Is it because of Isabelle?”

Alex sat down on the couch, taking a giant swig of water, pouting. “No.”

“It is.”

“It goes way beyond Isabelle. He’s been trying me for months, and I’m just about done with it, I swear to God.”

“Just keep it together for one more day, I’m begging you.”

Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen.

He got to sleep in the next day; the official weigh-ins weren’t until late in the evening, fans already starting to gather around the hotel, waiting to make the trek to the arena. He wouldn’t do any training today, got to just lay around and let his muscles settle, making sure he was in peak condition for the fight tomorrow.

Weigh-ins were intense, the arena packed full of fans and music blasting, rising towards the ceiling. He could hear it, shaking the walls of the back room that they were gathered in. He paced around the room nervously; this was always the night where it really started to hit him. Every time he passed Isabelle he caught her eye, taking a deep breath, trying to calm down.

Dominic would be up on stage first since he was the challenger, and Jackie’s words kept running through Alex’s brain: “Just keep it together for one more day.” He promised himself that no matter what Dominic did up there, no matter what he said, he would stay calm. He didn’t want to look like an asshole in front of the whole world, now did he?

“What’s happening, my friends?” he heard Joe Rogan yell into the microphone, knew he was up on stage, the swimsuit-clad ring girls following him up the stairs. He closed his eyes, clenching his fists, felt Isabelle move beside him and lace her fingers through his, feeling her heartbeat against his palm.

“Just breathe, baby,” she whispered.

Jackie stood up. “It’s time.”

They were led out of the room, down the hallway to the side doors of the arena. Alex stopped, flipping his hood up, the rest of his team coming to a stop behind him. He watched as Dominic approached from the other side of the stage. “Introducing the challenger, Dominic Nicholas!” Joe Rogan yelled, Dominic bounding on stage, pulling his shirt off over his head and stepping on the scale.

“And his opponent…” That was Alex’s cue, and he emerged from the wings, roars filling his ears, the bright lights of the arena dancing over his face as he made his way up the stairs, not even looking at Dominic, who he was sure was staring him down. “The reigning, defending, undisputed UFC middleweight champion of the world…”

Alex dropped his shirt onto the ground in a puddle, snapping the band of his sweatpants and finally looking over at Dominic, winking. Sure enough, the kid was glaring at him as he stepped on the scale. “Alexander Ludwig!”

He pointed towards the ceiling, high above him, holding the pose for a few seconds. Dominic was already squared up, waiting for the face-off, and as soon as he reached the count of five in his head, he was off the scale, making his way over to Dominic in a few steps.

He had meant to be calm, really, he had, but as soon as he got up to Dominic, the kid got in his face, pushing towards him even as Dana stepped in, trying to hold them apart. “You good?” Dominic asked him, cupping his hand around his ear and tilting his head towards Alex exaggeratedly. “You good today?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Alex said, Dana’s hand firm on his chest, pushing him backwards. “Just be ready for the knockout.”

“You have no idea what’s coming,” Dominic said, yelling back, barely audible over the screams of the crowd and the music. Dana was square in between them when Dominic lunged, the crowd yelling even louder. Security stepped in immediately, pulling them apart, one of them grabbing Alex around the waist and ripping him backwards before he could connect. Alex could have sworn he saw Dana smirking.

“It’s all good,” the security guy said, dropping Alex back down to the ground and patting his shoulder. “It’s all good.” He turned back to the crowd, raising his arms as they screamed. It was hard to be calm in a situation like this, he thought. Jackie would just have to understand.

Twenty-four hours from now, he could rip this kid limb from limb.

Twenty-four hours from now, he would be taking that belt home with him.


	11. who can touch me cause i'm made of fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> / you make me feel invincible  
> / earthquake, powerful  
> / just like a tidal wave  
> / you make me brave  
> / you're my titanium  
> / fight song, raising up  
> / like a roar of victory in a stadium  
> / who can touch me 'cause i'm made of fire  
> / who can stop me tonight, i'm hard wired  
> feel invincible by skillet

In the last ten years of his career, Alex had never begun the day of a fight with morning sex, not even when he’d had a serious girlfriend back in Iowa. He knew that there was no truth to the rumor that it would impair his performance, but he was incredibly superstitious, not wanting to do anything that might make him feel weaker. The problem was he hadn’t counted on Isabelle, and if anyone could weaken him, it was her. 

Technically, he had started it, and technically, she had pushed him away, asking him if he was sure. Of course he was sure. He wasn’t an idiot. What he hadn’t planned on was what he said in the moments afterwards, blankets crumpled around them and that look in her eyes.

“Isabelle,” he said, pushing her hair behind her ears. So much had happened in the last two months, the last two weeks, the last two days, and everything was about to change, the second the fight was over. But he wanted to know what had happened the night they went to the club, felt the words coming out of him before he could stop them, couldn’t have stopped them with a Mack truck. He’d been thinking about it every single day since it had happened, and even more so since Christmas. He just had to know. 

“Yeah.” She rolled over, the sun falling across her face and lighting up her eyes.

“You remember the night we went out?” 

She took a deep breath. “Yes. And I already know what you’re going to say.”

He spread his hand across her stomach, feeling her skin warm under his palm. “What’s that?”

“Why did I stop you?”

He didn’t say anything, just nodded once, waiting for her to say something before his heart exploded in his chest. He could feel all of the blood rushing to his ears just thinking back on that night. 

She bit her lip, tilting her head so her hair fell across the pillow, catching the sun. “I don’t…” She looked down, pulling the edge of the pillowcase through her fingers. “I don’t know. I panicked.”

“How come?”

Isabelle looked up at him, running her fingers along his jaw. “You were drunk. I was drunk. I didn’t want it to be this big thing that we did if you were going to wake up in the morning and change your mind. Or pretend that it never happened.”

“I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?”

“You were just supposed to trust me.” He pouted at her exaggeratedly and she laughed, knocking him in the shoulder with her knuckles. 

The past few days felt like he had just taken a punch, in the best way possible. Alex sat up, pulling her onto his lap. This, right here, was worth all of the worry and the stress and the ridiculous road he had taken to get to this point. This girl was worth it. And he didn’t know what else there was to say, thought maybe they had said enough for now, so he just kissed her, over and over and over, putting everything he felt behind it. With this girl by his side, he couldn’t lose. 

Eventually, he had to get up, had to go to the makeshift gym set up in one of the conference room off the lobby to go for a run or he thought he might burst out of his skin. They hadn’t talked about anything else yet; Alex figured that there would be time enough after the fight, that they would have a lifetime to talk in just a few hours. Until then, he could wait. 

Jackie came and sat with him in the gym, her hair pushed up on top of her head, pen shoved through it like always. This was their pre-fight ritual, just the two of them, reminiscent of the days when he didn’t have a team or a coach or a camp, just Jackie. Usually, on the morning of Fight Night, he would go into her room at the hotel where they were staying, crawl into bed with her, and watch Friday Night Lights as she squeezed his hand so tight he had to pry her fingers off by the end of the first episode.

“How do you feel?” she asked him, flipping through her magazine. It was rare to see Jackie not working, knew that she was only taking a break for him, so that she could be there to calm him down when the nerves inevitably hit him.

“Same as always,” he said, shrugging, hitting a couple of buttons on the treadmill to make it speed up a few notches. “Nervous. Excited. Ready.”

“This is a big one.”

“Sure is.”

They sat there in silence, Jackie turning a page. He knew she was dying to talk to him about Isabelle, knew she was restraining herself for his sake. He sure wasn’t going to tell her anything yet, felt like it was a bubble or a butterfly sitting in the palm of his hand; if he brought it up or addressed it, he might lose it. 

He upped the speed again on the treadmill, moving faster and faster until the door crashed open and he almost ate shit, practically jumping out of his skin. “Alex!”

Fuck. “Yes?”

Dayo came storming over, hitting the stop button. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Alex jumped off the treadmill as it slowed to a stop, putting his hands on his head. “Uh… nothing?”

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“This is me resting.”

“Upstairs. Now.” Dayo pushed him out of the room, Jackie jumping up and following them, racing to catch up. “You were supposed to be watching him,” he heard Dayo hiss to Jackie as they made their way toward the elevators.

“Technically, I was!”

The skyloft was packed, Isabelle and Mark sprawled out across one of the couches, Leven and Jack next to them. Nick was in the kitchen, digging through one of the cupboards. His mom and Natalie and Sophia had arrived at some point too, and his mom was pacing nervously. “Alex!” she said when she saw him walk in, flying over to him and hugging him. 

Alex knew it was hard for his mom to watch him fight and that it never got any easier. But she was always there, ringside, peeking through her fingers when it got to be too much. “Momma,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “Hey.” It felt like she was shaking as he hugged her. “Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m always nervous,” she said, pulling back and cupping his face in her hands. “You’re my little boy.”

“Mom,” he said, saw Isabelle exchange a smirk with Natalie behind his mom’s back. “Come on.”

His mom had always been skeptical of his career choices. She had come around once she realized he was making money and wasn’t going to be bartending forever or begging on the street, but it was rough at first. She had cried for days when he told her he wasn’t going to go to college, yelled at him when he took his first fight, and called him every day for three weeks after he moved to Las Vegas, begging him to come back. He knew she wanted the best for him, knew she couldn’t really understand how much this meant to him. But even so, with all the tears and goodbyes, she had supported him, telling him that she would always be there, no matter what.

“How is Bear?” Alex asked, saying the first thing that came into his brain to change the subject.

“He’s good,” Natalie piped up from where she was sitting on the couch next to Jack. She had been posting endless videos on her Instagram story of the puppy, and he would have to watch her very closely to make sure Bear didn’t go back to college with her. “He likes me more than he likes you.”

“You’re not taking my dog, Natalie.”

She made a face at him, pulling her phone out. “Ava is with him,” his mom said, ignoring the fact that her children still fought like they were back in middle school. 

Everyone ended up scattering to every corner of the skyloft, all of them knowing Alex needed to be by himself for a few hours before the fight. He ended up out on the balcony off his room, looking out over the strip. He hadn’t had a cigarette in five years, but he wanted one right now just so he could have something to do with his hands. He sat down on one of the couches, putting his feet up on the fireplace table in front of him and leaning his head back, closing his eyes. 

He probably could have fallen asleep right there, bundled up in sweatshirts, the fire flickering in front of him, sun high in the sky. He might have, if he hadn’t heard the voices floating up to him from the balcony beneath his, if he hadn’t heard his name and realized immediately that it was Isabelle, Jack, and Leven. He heard the sound of the door closing and them sitting down, and he knew that he should go back inside, but… who was he kidding?

“So how’s it going?” he heard Jack ask, his voice mixing with the car horns and screaming drifting up from the street. 

“It’s…” Alex couldn’t see her, but he knew her well enough to know that she was taking her time, choosing her words carefully. “It’s really fucking good.” He ducked his head, smiled.

“You seem happy,” Leven said.

“I am happy.”

“Well, fill us in.”

It was weird to hear their relationship laid out so succinctly, and it seemed less complicated than it actually was when Isabelle talked about it. Alex knew he should get up and leave, but it was like he was glued to the couch, unable to move even if he wanted to, especially not once she started answering all the questions he had been too afraid to ask.

He heard her say that she had been attracted to him right away, that she hadn’t wanted to ruin their friendship but she just couldn’t help herself. She said that he made her world brighter, that she couldn’t sleep without him next to her. She said that Jackie had told her that this was going to happen, that she was going to fall for him and she was going to fall hard. With every word she said, his heart got lighter until he thought he might just float away.

“You know, before I met him, I thought he was just gonna be some rich boy without a heart but he has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met,” Isabelle said.

“The biggest something,” Leven muttered, Alex straining to hear, and he knew without even seeing it that Isabelle was making a face at her. “It also helps that he’s really hot,” Leven said, and Jack snorted. Alex felt his face burning red, even though they couldn’t see him and had no idea he was listening.

“Come on, Lev.”

“What? It’s true. Even you can appreciate it.” 

“So where do things stand with you two right now?” Jack asked, and Leven squealed. Alex assumed he had pinched her or flicked her in the throat, which he knew she hated. 

“Well, we’ve been hooking up,” Isabelle said, and Leven choked on whatever it was she was drinking.

“Leven, what the fuck? You just spit all over me!”

“Shut up, Jack. This is much more important.”

“Since when?” Leven asked.

“Christmas.”

“I fucking knew it! Did I not tell you that, Jack?”

“You did, Lev. You are the queen as always.”

“Well… how is it?”

“Leven!”

The conversation devolved quickly after that, and Alex figured that was his cue to leave. He didn’t need to hear them discuss whether or not he was good in bed; he had an ego to protect after all. He went back into his room, shutting the door behind him as quietly as possible, and got into bed, closing his eyes and thinking of his girl.

When he woke up, Jackie was next to him, Friday Night Lights blaring on the television. Judging by where the episode was at, he had only been asleep for about thirty minutes. “Hey,” he said, his voice scratchy, rolling over and slinging his arm over her stomach. 

“Hey.” She smoothed her hand over his forehead, her palm cool. 

“What time is it?” 

She checked her watch, her Love bracelet clinking against it as she turned her wrist. “Two.”

Six more hours. Alex knew it was going to feel like a lifetime. “Where’s Iz?”

“Shopping with Leven.” She cleared her throat pointedly. “Are you ever going to tell me what is going on?”

“After tonight,” he said, feeling like his chest was tightening at just the thought of the fight, or maybe it was at the thought of putting what he felt into his words, explicit and out there for everyone to see. “I swear, I’ll tell you everything after tonight.”

She hooked her leg over his, laying back against the pillows and grabbing his hand, squeezing hard, her heart beating against his palm. He closed his eyes and listened to Coach Taylor say, “We are all vulnerable and we will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall.” He took a deep breath. “We must carry this in our hearts: that what we have is special, that it can be taken from us and that when it is taken from us we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls.” 

“Okay,” Jackie whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. “I trust you.”

* * *

The room was completely silent as Nick wrapped his hands, the tape moving around and around in a flash of white. Nick was the only one he trusted to do it before a big fight; he had been doing it since Alex was eighteen after all. Call it superstition, call it habit, but not even Dayo was allowed to wrap his hands. 

His team was gathered around him, and it felt like everyone was collectively holding their breath. Isabelle had such a death grip on Jackie’s hand that he could see Jackie’s fingers turning white out of the corner of his eye. He dropped his head down, watching as Nick finished up with the tape, tucking in the ends and turning Alex’s hands over to make sure everything looked okay.

“Okay,” Jackie said, her voice cracking as she broke the silence. It was all part of their tradition, and everyone knew exactly what was coming every step of the way. Jackie tossed a Sharpie to Nick, who bent his head over Alex’s hands, signing his name on the tape on Alex’s left. Dayo stepped up next, then Mark, Leven, and Jack.

When it was Isabelle’s turn, she took the marker from Jack, turning Alex’s hand over and signing right in the middle of his palm. It looked like she was concentrating hard, her tongue poking out between her teeth. When she was done, she looked up at Alex, squeezing his hand before dropping it and turning around, handing the Sharpie to Jackie, who always went last. 

Jackie had started this particular tradition before Alex’s first professional fight when it was just her and Nick back in the fight room with him, pulling a pen out of her pocket and scribbling her name over his knuckles. “There,” she had told him. “Now we’ll be with you in there.”

Alex swallowed hard, looking up at his team, standing around him. He was the luckiest guy in the world; he knew that without a doubt. Now he just had to go out there and finish it for them.

The roars of the crowd were trickling through the walls, shaking the room and vibrating the chair underneath him. He felt like he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t take a big enough gulp of air. Dayo looked at him, knowing exactly what he was feeling and tapping his back to get him to stand up, grabbing the pads.

“Just a few more minutes,” he said, holding them out for Alex to hit, moving in a slow circle around him, speeding up and reaching out to force Alex to duck beneath his reach. He forced Alex to move faster, duck quicker, dance back out of his grasp, mind clearing until all that was left was muscle memory. 

Before long, there was a knock on the door, one of the event managers sticking their head in, flanked by a UFC official, and giving Alex the five minute warning. “Everyone out,” Jackie ordered, knowing he needed a few seconds to himself or his head would explode. They all pushed their way out of the room, going to stand in the hallway and wait for him. Isabelle was last, turning to look at him, one hand on the door handle. She was dressed all in white, the light from the hallway behind her backlighting her and making her look like an angel.

“Wait,” he said, his voice rough, and she stopped, the door falling shut behind her. He was over to her in three seconds, pushing her up against it, one arm propped up over her head, and he kissed her. 

It felt needy and endless, like he couldn’t get enough, like he was about to go to war and leave her forever, and maybe in a sense he was. He was leaving behind everything that had been and stepping into something even better. She pulled him closer, slipping her hands under his t-shirt and spreading her fingers across his back, his muscles flexing underneath her.

“Alex,” she whispered into his mouth after a few moments, her breaths coming short and fast. 

He pulled back to look at her, her eyes flashing hot and bright. “Okay.” He swallowed, knowing that if he didn’t stop now, didn’t pull back, he wouldn’t be able to. “Now I’m ready.” 

He followed her out into the hallway, the rest of his team waiting for him there. “We’re ready,” Jackie said to the event manager, catching Alex’s eye, and he gave her a nod. They were ushered to the doors leading into the arena, the lights shutting off in front of them until the entire tunnel was dark. Jackie, Isabelle, Leven, and Jack peeled off, going to sit in the front row with Alex’s family.

Through the door, he could hear the deafening sounds of the crowd waiting just inside. He knew that Dominic was already in there, waiting by the ring, waiting to try to end his career. This was it; this was the culmination of everything that he had been working towards. 

He could hear the first notes of his walkout song come over the sound system, Skillet blasting through the arena. He knew all the lights in the arena were off, the place pitch black except for the illumination along the path he would be walking. He knew that there were twenty thousand people in there, all of whom would be staring right at him. He had been here before, but that didn’t mean it ever got any easier.

Dayo put his hand on Alex’s shoulder, patting him once before pulling back. Alex flipped his hood up over his head, knowing that he was expected to look and act a certain way. He took three deep breaths, nodding to the event manager before pushing the double doors open, the arena rising up in front of him. The noise from the crowd was deafening, but he tried to block it all out, tried not to look at the people lining the barricade, reaching for him. He just stared straight ahead, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. He knew that if he looked up, the camera would be tight on his face, projecting everything out on the big screens.

His mom and sisters were sitting ringside with his friends, all of them looking at him expectantly. He knew that his mom was clutching Natalie’s hand as tight as his sister would allow. He knew Jackie was chewing on her bottom lip, twisting a curl of red hair around her finger. He caught Isabelle’s eye, winked reassuringly. 

An official came over to him as he pulled his shirt off, checking the tape on his hands, patting him down, looking in his mouth. Dayo was right there with his gloves, slipping them on as Alex’s cutman rubbed his face down with Vaseline so that it would be harder for Dominic to split the skin. “You all set?” Dayo asked. He nodded, opening his mouth so Dayo could put his mouthguard in. “Good. Get him.”

Alex paused at the steps of the cage, kneeling down to put the fist of his glove to the floor, the other over his heart, the same way he did before every fight. It was his way of reminding himself to leave everything out there. 

Dominic was in the ring already, moving across his side, his eyes fixed on Alex. Alex barely glanced at him, jogging past him and stretching out his arms. There was so much adrenaline running through his veins that it felt like his legs were going numb. 

“Ladies and gentleman,” Bruce Buffer said, stepping into the ring with his microphone and drawing out his words as the crowd screamed. “This fight is five rounds for the undisputed UFC middleweight championship of the world!” Alex’s heart was pounding so fast he thought he might pass out, and he paced back and forth across his side of the ring as Bruce spoke. 

“Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner…” Dominic raised his arms, jumping back and forth from one foot to the other. “Mixed martial artist, holding a professional record of ten wins and one loss, standing six feet tall, weighing in at one hundred eighty-four and one half pounds… presenting…” Get on with it, Bruce. “The challenger… ‘El Diablo’ Dominic Nicolas!” The crowd met Bruce’s words with cheers, but Alex knew he was going to get a whole lot more. 

Bruce held an arm out to Alex. “And now introducing the champion.” Alex finally looked at Dominic, made sure the kid caught his eye so that he would remember who the champion in this ring was. “Fighting out of the red corner, a boxer and a wrestler, holding a professional record of sixteen wins and zero losses…” Alex smirked, the cameraman dancing around him as he moved. “Standing six feet two inches tall, weighed in at one hundred and eighty-five pounds, presenting the reigning defending undisputed UFC middleweight champion of the world…” Bruce’s words were almost drowned out by the crowd, even amplified over the sound system. “Alexander ‘Ironside’ Ludwig!”

Bruce introduced the referee, who brought Alex and Dominic to the center of the ring, face to face. “Alright, gentleman,” he said. “We’ve been over the rules. Protect yourselves at all times and follow my instructions. We’re gonna have a clean fight.” Dominic was staring Alex down, and he returned the glare, keeping his eyes locked on the kid, not moving. “You can touch gloves now if you wish.” Alex backed away, Dominic following his lead. There was no way in hell.

Alex shook his arms out, rolling his shoulder back and forth. It felt like minutes, hours, days, but was only seconds before the referee clapped his hands together, signaling the start of the fight, and Alex came forward.

He wasn’t going to throw the first punch; that’s what they had decided. He needed to draw Dominic in. He had a bigger reach, more length in his arms, and he needed Dominic to get close enough to pop him. He moved around Dominic, waiting for him to start something, and it only took a few seconds before he did, throwing a left hook that Alex ducked easily before landing a punch somewhere in the vicinity of Dominic’s liver.

It wasn’t a big one, but it was enough, the smack resounding through the ring and being drowned out by the crowd. They wanted to see something big, and Alex was going to give it to them.

Dominic lunged forward, trying to take Alex down to the ground, and he backed out if it, remembering Dayo’s words: “Just remember that you have a better chance of knocking him down if you stay on your feet than he does of holding you down for the entire fight.” 

The kid threw a couple of kicks, hitting Alex’s ribs with a crack. He was used to it; Dayo used to hit him in the ribs with a medicine ball to build strength, but that didn’t make it suck any less. He tried not to wince as the kicks landed, kept his balance and kept moving.

He landed the first big punch about forty-five seconds into the first round, faster than he had been anticipating and catching Dominic off guard. The kid kept trying to take him down, lunging forward and grabbing him around the waist, Alex able to shake him off before he lost his balance. He hit him with a right hook after one of the attempted take-downs, Dominic stumbling back and blood appearing above his left eye. Alex could tell it shook him a little, as well it should. Nobody hit like Alex did; everyone knew that. 

Dominic staggered backwards against the cage, and Alex went in for the kill, the crowd chanting his name and roaring in his ears. He wanted to make the kid tap. Dominic hooked his arm around Alex’s neck, going for the choke, but Alex had the better position, managing to shift his hips and pick Dominic up, slamming him down onto the mat. The noise in the arena became deafening.

He scrambled to get on top of Dominic, knowing he wanted to go for the submission as quickly as possible now that they were on the ground. He couldn’t give Dominic one second to think or he would find himself in trouble. Dominic was trying to muscle his way back to his feet, but Alex was bigger, stronger, and had the better position. 

He slipped up for only a second, shifting to his left to try to get in place for a submission, and Dominic managed to land a punch to his kidney, sliding out from underneath Alex and scrambling to his feet. Alex popped up quickly, but not before Dominic punched him square in the eye, the same place he had just hit him, and he knew that it had opened up a cut, blood already spotting the mat.

He shook his head imperceptibly, blinking blood out of his eyes as Dominic came towards him. He took a couple of deep breaths, stepping backwards and letting Dominic tire himself out. He kicked him a couple of times, trying to get him to soften up so he could take a quick breather.

The rest of the round went quickly, the horn blowing before Alex knew it. Dominic was more hesitant after the takedown, seemed more nervous to approach Alex or try for another submission. Alex sat down on the chair in the corner, breathing heavily and tilting his head back. His team was on him instantly, Dayo pouring water in his mouth and muttering instructions in his ear, his cutman looking at his eye, dabbing it with a Q-tip and trying to get the bleeding to subside.

“He got you good,” Dayo said. “But you won that round easily. Remember what I said and let him come to you. He can’t land hits as big as yours, and you’re going to get in trouble on the ground. Keep him standing.”

Alex nodded, sucking down water, his chest heaving, sweat and blood dripping down onto the mat. “Got it.”

Dayo glanced behind him for the time. “He’s going to get stuck on the fence and waste energy, so you need to capitalize on that.”

When Alex was fighting, it was like time stood still. It was the only thing he had ever been good at, the only thing he ever wanted to do, and he loved it more than anything in the world. Being in the fight, in front of twenty thousand people screaming his name, was a high like he never could have imagined when he was eighteen years old and fighting in rec halls or sketchy bars. 

“Bring it home this round,” Dayo said. “Let’s not drag it out.”

Alex nodded again, trying to clear his mind. After a few more seconds, they pulled the stool out from under him, and the fight was back on, his team retreating outside the ring to scream at him through the cage. 

Dominic came out swinging, Alex dancing around him, letting him land a few punches but nothing major. He was going to finish it, just like Dayo said. There was no need to make it a five round decision fight; he wasn’t getting any younger after all. 

Finally, he saw an opening, ducking in, dodging a punch and smacking Dominic with a big left. And that was it; Dominic went down, dropping to one knee, and Alex didn’t jump in to finish him off, taking a step back and looking down at him. That was a knock-out if he had ever seen one, and he had definitely seen plenty.

Except, for some reason, it wasn’t. The official didn’t call it, and Dominic staggered back to his feet, blood pouring onto the mat. Alex could vaguely hear Dayo behind him, yelling at the referee, and all he felt was confused, trying to shake the fog out of his brain that came with being hit so many times.

“Whatever, just keep going!” Dayo was screaming. “Finish it, Alex!” 

Looking back, he wasn’t sure what happened. He had trained for every scenario, had known that Dominic was a great grappler, had known that his ground game was his weakness, had known he needed to focus as much on his takedown defense as possible. He knew all these things; Dayo had drilled them into his brain over and over and over. So why was it that when it came down to it, he forgot?

It only took a moment, one brief second, one tiny lapse in concentration for Alex to find himself flat on his back. He had no idea how Dominic had managed to take him down so quickly, just knew the kid lunged at him in a quick moment of desperation. It had to have been luck more than anything, blood slippery under their feet and in their eyes, sweat pouring off them, muscles aching, bruised ribs screaming, and exhaustion setting in.

Alex knew immediately that he was fucked. Dominic had him pinned down, arm in his grasp, and he was about to arch his back, about to pull back and armbar Alex. All the training he had done flashed through his brain like wildfire; he had worked on this with Mark and Miesha, hell, even Isabelle. And yet, now that he was here, he couldn’t think of what to do. He knew, intellectually, that he just needed to shift his weight, move the center of gravity to flip Dominic over.

Instead, he panicked and tried to pull his arm out, knowing he was only seconds away from being submitted. He would rather die than tap.

And maybe that was the problem.

The last thing Alex remembered was the white hot shooting pain through his shoulder as the muscles finally gave way, ripping completely clean, and everything went black.

* * *

Victory or Valhalla. That had been his motto for his entire professional career. He was going to win or he was going to die trying. That had never really been put to the test until now. 

He didn’t know where he was when he woke up, his brain trying to groggily process the information around him. When he opened his eyes, everything was white and clean and quiet, the silence punctuated by the beeping of a machine and the pounding in his head. He turned his head to the left, wincing at the pain, saw Jackie curled up in a chair, asleep.

He tried reaching for some water, only to find that his left arm was bandaged snugly against his body, tight up against his ribs, which had to be cracked. It all came rushing back to him. He had lost the belt. He had lost the title. He had lost.

“Jackie,” he said, his voice hoarse. She didn’t move, and anger bubbled up through him. “Jackie. Jackie!”

She jerked awake, sitting up and looking around, blinking. “Oh my God, hey. You’re up.”

“What the fuck happened?”

She reached towards the water jug on the rolling table next to his bed, pouring him a glass and pushing it towards him. He sucked it down, waiting for her to answer. “Well. You tore your rotator cuff.” Fuck. “Full thickness, acute tear.” They had known this day was coming; he had put off surgery for months, hoping that his shoulder would stay together long enough for him to get through another couple of fights. “You need surgery.”

He lay his head back, closing his eyes, hoping that if he couldn’t see her maybe what she was saying wouldn’t be true. “Couple of broken ribs,” she continued slowly. She could tell how mad he was, was tiptoeing around him. “Concussion. Stitches in your eyebrow.” She cleared her throat.

“The fight?”

She didn’t answer.

“Jackie. What happened?”

“They ruled it a submission,” she said, her voice small. “You passed out, but they said you would have tapped.”

“Goddammit!” Alex threw the empty water glass across the room; it hit the wall with an anticlimactic pop and fell to the ground, rolling underneath the bed. 

“Alex.” Her face was white, big bags under her eyes, and she looked like she had barely slept in months. “It’s okay.”

“How the fuck is this okay?”

“You’ll come back stronger, you’ll come back ready, I don’t-”

“It’s not fucking okay, Jackie. That was my belt, and he just took it away. From me. From us.”

This was what it felt like to know that the past five years of work had gone down the drain, had washed away in a millisecond, in one bad decision. He had thought about this moment a lot, but the real life possibility of it happening had never been an option for him. He ran through the last few weeks in his head, trying to figure out what he had done wrong, trying to figure out where things had changed.

“Where’s Isabelle?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Bathroom,” Jackie said. “She was just here.”

“Can you go get her?”

Fighting was all he had. Fighting was all he had ever had. He didn’t know who he was without it, but he certainly knew that it was all he had to offer.

He knew what he needed to do.


	12. i got demons, i can't deny it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i got demons, i can't deny it  
> / if i said i didn't miss you, i'd be lying  
> / i've been driving, trying to clear my mind, putting on mileage  
> come home by p.mo

Nika had been Alex’s girlfriend all through high school. They had started dating freshman year, which mainly consisted of their moms dropping them off at the movies because there really wasn’t anything else to do in Iowa. The shocking part was that it had lasted. They had been together for four years by the time Alex turned eighteen and started fighting.

She had been there for him every step of the way, through the training and the amateur fights and the traveling, the crappy motel rooms and shitty back bars. She was there when he was fighting in what was little more than a basement; she was there when he ripped his shoulder the first time; she was there through the losses and the wins, the blood, sweat, and tears. She was there.

Until, suddenly, she wasn’t. Alex had talked a lot about everything that would change when he went pro. Their lives would be different. He would start making money, and he could take care of her the way that she had taken care of him all these years. It seemed perfect. But apparently, it was not what she wanted.

He had already met Jackie, had made the plans to move to Vegas, was going to bring Nika with him, had bought the plane tickets and started packing. That’s when she broke up with him. Over the phone. 

“What do you mean you can’t do this anymore?” He was sitting on the floor of his childhood bedroom, a t-shirt hanging loosely from his hand, his suitcase gaping open on the floor, totally forgotten. 

“I’m sorry, Alex.” Her voice crackled over the phone, and he didn’t know if it was because the connection sucked or because she was crying. “It’s too hard.”

“What’s too hard?”

“Being with you.” Her words cut like knives, hurt more than any punch he had ever had to take. “I just can’t do it.”

And that had been it, eight years of their relationship gone faster than he could snap his fingers. He never spoke to her again, after he hung up on her that night, and he honestly didn’t think that he could have gotten through it without Jackie. 

That’s why this was so crazy. He was back here in his childhood bedroom in his mom’s house, Nika perched uncomfortably at the foot of the bed. Jackie was nowhere to be found; she was back in Vegas, trying to clean up the mess that Alex had left behind, and thinking back, he realized that he hadn’t been apart from her for more than a couple of days in the last five years.

Retreating back to his mom’s house, tail between his legs, was not how he had seen this fight ending all the times that he had gone over it in his mind. It wasn’t something he saw himself doing ever, for any reason. And yet, here he was.

“You look good,” Nika said. 

“Stop.”

“You do. Even like this.”

He had two black eyes, stitches cutting across his forehead, and his arm was bandaged tight to his side. He could barely move without his ribs screaming out in pain, and he shifted uncomfortably, feeling awkward that he was laying in bed in front of her, even though this was the girl he had first loved, lost his virginity to, shared all of his secrets with for so long.

When his mom had knocked on his door a few minutes ago, saying that there was someone here to see him, he had not expected Nika of all people. She poked her head around the door nervously. “It looks exactly the same,” she said in lieu of a greeting. 

He sat up quickly, regretting that decision immediately, his head swimming. He pulled his glasses off, setting them carefully on his nightstand. “Holy shit. Nik, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Subtle, as always.” She came over to him, kissed his cheek awkwardly, lingering there for a moment. It felt weird; the whole thing was weird. For so long, he had been so comfortable around her, had moved around her in the way that only two people who had been together for so long could. 

“What, uh… what are you doing here?” he asked. Might as well cut to the chase.

“Just wanted to see if you were okay.” She dropped her bag onto the floor with a thud, pulling her feet up underneath her. He checked to see if she was wearing a wedding ring, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She wasn’t.

“I’ve been better.”

Nika nodded, her face serious. “I’ve been keeping up with you. Your career and stuff.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Just my career or… the other stuff too?”

She knew exactly what he was talking about, a smirk playing over her face. “Everything. You know, I never saw you as a dad type.”

“Shut up.” He threw a pillow across the bed at her, and she caught it, laughing. It was surreal, the way he felt around her, that he was so comfortable so quickly. The only other girl he had felt like this with was Isabelle, and he couldn’t think about her right now, couldn’t bring her into this place. “You know none of it was true.”

“I know. You’re careful.”

He shrugged, pulling another pillow across his lap, smoothing out the pillowcase. “For real though. Why are you here?”

Nika cleared her throat. “I used to know you. Better than anyone. I’m probably the only one who knows what you’re feeling right now.”

She was right. In all the time he had been with his team, Jackie and Dayo and Mark, he had never lost. They had never seen him like this. And they had no idea what to do, how to handle it, how to act. 

He had only been back at his house for a couple of days after the surgery before he decided that he needed to go home. He couldn’t be around Jackie, who was wandering around the apartment with a devastated look on her face, checking in on him every five minutes which only served to remind him of all the shit that had just gone down. He couldn’t look at Isabelle’s empty room every time he passed it. He could barely even stand to look at Bear, who was just another reminder of everything that he had given up.

So he left. 

He wrote Jackie a letter, scrounged a notebook out of the junk drawer in the kitchen and sat down at the counter late one night after she had gone asleep. “Going home,” he said. “Can’t be here right now. I’m sorry I let you down.” He scribbled his flight number at the bottom, tearing the piece of paper out of the notebook and leaving it on the counter, the edges curling up. He wanted to say more, felt like he had years worth of sentiment that he needed to put out there, but he couldn’t. He stopped at the door to the elevator, looking back at the darkened apartment, not sure when he would be back. Not sure if he could come back.

Alex had ruined everything, just like he always did. 

Jackie had called him the next morning, but it was too late; he had just landed in Des Moines, taking the red eye out so that she wouldn’t be able to stop him. “How long are you going to be?” she asked him when he picked up the phone, not even bothering to say hello. 

“I don’t know.” He was standing at baggage claim, duffel bag on the floor by his feet, waiting for the siren to go off and the carousel to start turning. Right now it was silent, the way airports were at five in the morning, like some weird alternate dimension. “I just need to clear my head.”

“You can clear your head here.”

“You know I can’t.”

Jackie was quiet for a long time, and the bags started to come down the ramp, hitting the bottom with giant thuds. “You didn’t have to do what you did.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain it to you, Jackie. But it wasn’t going to work. None of it was going to work.”

“You don’t know that.”

He saw his black suitcase come sliding down onto the carousel, hitting the bottom with such force that it almost flipped over. “Jackie, I gotta go,” he said, trying not to drop his phone as he grabbed his duffel bag, his injured shoulder seriously restricting his movement. “I’ll text you, okay? Don’t worry.” And he hung up.

Of course she was going to worry. All she ever did was worry, and he sure hadn’t made her life any easier in the days since the fight.

Alex had gone into surgery right away, the doctors spending hours trying to repair his shoulder. They said the prognosis was good; recovery would only take about six months. But that didn’t feel like a good thing to Alex. Instead, it felt like a lifetime.

Isabelle was gone when he had gotten out of surgery. He knew she would be. He knew she wasn’t going to stick around after what he had done.

He sighed now, looking at Nika. “Yeah. I guess you are the only one who really gets it.”

There was a long pause, and she had a weird look on her face. He didn’t know what she was going to say, certainly wasn’t expecting her to ask the question she did. “Where is your girlfriend?”

Alex bit his lip, wincing internally. “She’s, uh… she’s not my girlfriend. Not anymore.”

“Oh, God. What did you do?” 

“Why do you assume I did something?”

“I know you.”

He had been laying there in that fucking hospital bed, trying to figure out where his life had gone wrong, where he had screwed up. He replayed the fight over and over in his mind, thinking back to moments when he should have hit harder, gone for the takedown, gotten out of the armbar. If he couldn’t fight, he didn’t have anything. And if he loved Isabelle as much as he thought he did, he couldn’t subject her to that. He knew she would stick around no matter what, even if he was broken and embarrassed. She deserved more than that.

“Hey,” Isabelle had said, pushing through the door to his room and sitting down on the chair next to his bed, grabbing his good hand. “You’re awake.”

He could barely look at her, didn’t want to see the look on her face when he said what he had to say. “I think you should go.”

She froze. “What?”

He stared down at the blanket draped across him, felt like his blood was running cold in his veins. She dropped his hand, and he instantly ached for her touch. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Okay. Do you want me to go wait for you at the house?”

He looked up, catching her eye. If he was going to do this, he was going to be a man about it. He was going to say what he needed to say, face to face. She deserved at least that. “No, Isabelle. I think you should go home. We have to be done.”

She shook her head, like she couldn’t comprehend the words that were coming out of his mouth. “What? I-”

‘Isabelle.” He leveled his gaze at her. He knew she wouldn’t go anywhere, knew he needed to say what he needed to say to make her leave. “All you were was a distraction. I don’t…” The words caught in his throat, like even they knew he was lying. “I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want to be reminded of this for the rest of my life.”

Isabelle pulled back, her eyes flashing, and he knew she was hurt. He had done that to her. “A distraction?” She stood up. “If you thought I was a distraction, why did you let me sleep in your bed every night? Why did you kiss me when we got home from the club that night?” His heart sank into his stomach, feeling like a boulder sitting there, dragging him down. 

“It was… fun,” he said, trying not to sound like he was about to throw up. “And you’re great, but it was just business. I’m sorry I blurred the line on that.”

She stared at him for a long time, and he thought for a second that maybe she knew he was lying; maybe she would insist on staying and he could pretend that he hadn’t just said those horrible things. But she didn’t say anything, just turned around and left, the door swinging shut behind her. He almost wished that she had been mad, almost wished that she had slammed the door or yelled at him or said something, anything.

Just like that, January first and it was all over. This was not how he had thought it would have happened. This was not what he had planned.

“Come on,” Nika said.

He glared at her. “Come on where?”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

“It’s twenty degrees out. And I’m injured.”

She stood up, grabbing the blankets and yanking them off of him. She had always been annoyingly persistent. “I refuse to sit here and watch you wallow. We’re going for a walk.”

And that’s how he found himself walking around a frozen lake at the beginning of January, his breath coming out in white puffs and tiny icicles forming on his eyelashes. Nika had him by the arm, making sure he didn’t slip and fall, and it was a weird feeling, not just to have her here next to him but to need someone’s help so viscerally. He wasn’t used to it, and he wasn’t sure he could ever get used to it. It didn’t feel like him.

“So you fucked it up,” she said simply, not asking a question, not wanting an explanation, just assuming that she knew what was going on, which she did, of course. 

Alex spilled everything to her: the drama with Kat, Jackie’s plan, the fact that Isabelle had just been a ringer who had turned into so much more. Nika, for her part, didn’t say anything, let him talk until his face felt numb and he was slurring his words because it was just so damn cold out. 

“Well,” he said once he was finished. “It sounds like you’ve really done it this time.”

He glanced down at her, her mittened hand clutching his arm as she maneuvered them around a patch of ice. “Do you have any more helpful comments? A suggestion, perhaps?”

“An apology goes a long way.” She stopped, bringing him to a halt next to her. “That’s something I’ve owed you for a long time.”

He started shaking his head before she could even finish her sentence. “No. You don’t.”

“I do, and I’m not going to argue with you about it.”

“Can we at least do this inside?” He stamped his feet up and down, trying to bring feeling back into them. “I’m not used to this weather anymore.”

She rolled her eyes, grabbing his arm again and turning them around, back towards Alex’s mother’s house. “When did you turn into such a West Coaster?”

“West Coast, best coast.”

“Stop talking.”

His mom tried to pretend like she wasn’t eavesdropping on their conversation, but she was, barging into the living room to bring them hot chocolate, mini marshmallows dotting the top of Nika’s, just the way she had always liked it. Alex waited until she had gone upstairs, the barn door between the living room and the kitchen not doing much to shield their words from anyone lurking on the main level.

Nika leaned closer to the fireplace, mug clutched between her hands, steam rising up and shimmering in front of her like mist. Her hair was curling from the quick change in temperature, and she looked so shockingly like Isabelle that, for a moment, Alex felt like he couldn’t breathe, the air thickening around him and sticking in his throat.

“I owe you an explanation,” Nika said finally, blowing on her hot chocolate. “And I want you to just sit there and listen.”

“Okay.”

“Without saying anything.”

“I said okay!”

She glared at him, and he mimed zipping his lips, sitting back and pulling a marshmallow out of his cup, popping it in his mouth. “I was immature,” she started. “We were young. I thought that I didn’t know what I wanted. I thought that there was no way that we would make it. I mean, we had only been with each other, and that was terrifying.” 

It took everything he had not to say something, not to chime in and give her his two cents. He was quickly realizing that their relationship had been very different for her than it had for him. He was comfortable, and he was happy with that. It appeared that comfort, for her, was a crutch.

“Regardless of my reasons,” she continued, “I didn’t handle the situation with grace. I was afraid that if I was standing in front of you, I wouldn’t say what I thought I had to say.”

He couldn’t let the moment pass. “What you thought you had to say? Or what you did have to say?”

There was a long pause, and she turned the mug in her hands, watching as the liquid inside swirled around, marshmallows bumping up against the rim. “I guess… I guess it would be what I thought I had to say. I regretted it. Not right away, but afterwards. I’ve regretted it for a long time.”

Never in a million years did Alex think that his new year would have started off like this. He had never anticipated seeing or speaking to Nika ever again. He wasn’t bitter or angry or resentful; he had just moved on. He thought about her sometimes, but he had always assumed she had moved on too. He could see now that that might not have been the case. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said hurriedly, and he realized that she had been waiting for him to at least acknowledge her sentiment. “That’s not the point of this. The point is that… I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to be treated how I treated you.” She leaned forward, putting her hand on his knee. “You’re a good person. I know that you don’t think you are. And I know that you don’t believe that you deserve good things, but you do. You do.”

In that moment, Alex missed Isabelle so viscerally that he thought his heart might actually break, like this pain in his chest wasn’t from his broken ribs or his bruised muscles but from his heart actually cracking in two in his chest, ceasing to work. He closed his eyes against the feeling, trying to keep his hands from shaking and the pit in his stomach from getting any bigger. He couldn’t begin to understand why he felt the need to sabotage all of the good things in his life. 

“Thanks, Nik,” he managed to squeeze out, trying not to sound like he was choking on the words. He put his hand over hers, pushing down. “Thank you.”

There was a whole other issue he hadn’t even begun to tackle yet, and that was that for the first time in years, for the first time in his professional career, he had lost. And not only that, but he had lost to someone he absolutely had the capacity and skill to beat. Alex didn’t remember much of what had happened after he had passed out on the mat, just glimpses and flashes.

Jackie had told him everything later, when he was back at the apartment, back in his own bed, everything changed. It seemed like she didn’t want to say the words, like she didn’t want him to know what had happened, but he badgered her until she gave in.

“They stopped the fight right away,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed in front of the television. Alex was refusing to turn it on, knew that his first instinct would be to flip to ESPN and see what they were saying about him. He didn’t think he could take it. “It looked like you were going to get out of it, and then all of a sudden you just… weren’t there anymore. Nobody really knew what was going on.”

He could still feel the burning pain in his shoulder, like nothing he had ever experienced before, and if he thought about it for too long, he felt like the darkness was pulling him back under. 

Jackie cleared her throat, petting Bear who was snoring in her lap. “Dayo was… I’ve never seen him like that before. We had to hold him back because he was trying to jump into the ring to get to you.” She told them that they hadn’t done an official announcement, that they had given Dominic the belt in the center of the ring after Alex had been carted off on a stretcher. That was the most relieving part of all of this; he hadn’t had to stand there and watch Joe raise Dominic’s hand in the air. He didn’t think any part of him could take that.

“What are your plans now?” Nika asked him. She had always been the planner in their relationship, the one who organized his training schedule and his meals and his travel reservations. He had realized very quickly after meeting Jackie that she and Nika were the same person, separated at birth, and he essentially just traded one for another. 

“I just thought… I would stay here for a while.” He looked around to make sure his mom wasn’t lurking at the doorway. “Feels good to be home.”

Nika was quiet for a few moments, and Alex knew she had a lot of things that she wanted to say, holding back her words. “This isn’t your home anymore, Alex.”

“Sure it is.”

“No, it’s not. Your home is with your team. Your girlfriend. In Vegas. You can’t run away.”

“I’m not running. I am so far from running.”

“You’re going to fight again.”

He hadn’t said it out loud, had barely even dared to think it, but the sentiment was there in his brain, burrowing deep like a secret. Maybe he was done. Maybe this was it for him. Maybe this was all he would ever be. Count on Nika to sniff out those thoughts like a damn bloodhound. “We don’t know that.”

“I do.” She got up off the ottoman, setting her hot chocolate down on the hearth of the fireplace. Alex shifted on the couch as she sat next to him, curling up into his good side, and he put his arm around her. If he closed his eyes, she could be Isabelle and he could be back in his apartment, reliving the last eight weeks, pretending like he hadn’t fucked everything up. But she wasn’t and he had. “I never doubted you as a fighter. Not once.”

“Really?”

“You remember when you lost that first fight?” Of course he did. Up until now, it had been the most soul-crushing moment of his career, the last time he had questioned all of his choices on such a base level. He had just turned eighteen, just registered for his first amateur fight, had no idea what he was doing or how to fight, barely knew his butt from a hole in the ground. He had no business being in that ring, as he quickly found out once he got caught in that goddamned armbar.

“Yes. Don’t remind me of it.”

“You’re not focusing on the right thing.” He looked down at her. “You came back from that. We went through this same thing back then too. You thought you weren’t good enough, you wouldn’t fight again, you would never be one of the greats, blah blah blah. And look at you now. You are one of the greats. You have one of the best records in the sport. Are you gonna just let go of that?”

He cleared his throat. “No.”

“Exactly.”

Nika spent the entire day with him, taking over the duties of taking care of him from his mom, who was ecstatic to have a break. She had always liked Nika, even after she had left.

Back then, he had never thought that he would get over her. He was in that shitty house in Vegas with Jackie, crying himself to sleep every night for weeks and trying to hide it, but Jackie knew. She picked him up, forced him to get out of bed every day and go for a run, made all of his meals just to be sure he was eating, reminded him why he was there, why they were there. He missed Jackie as much as he missed Isabelle; the only difference was he knew that when he walked back into his apartment, Jackie would be right there, just like she always was.

The fire was flickering off her face softly and Alex’s heart was broken in two, so it came as no surprise to him that he ended up back at her house late that night. 

He hadn’t meant for it to happen, and he knew that she hadn’t either. Alex had never been one to backslide. But it made sense with everything else in his life taking a step into the past that this part of it would too. 

It was weird, being with her again after so long. So much had changed between them, and so much time had passed. They were adults now, not teenagers fumbling around in his room with the lights off, praying that his mom wouldn’t come home early. But when he kissed her and touched her and undressed her, all he could think about was Isabelle. And Alex knew through it all that he was screwed because the girl he had walked away from was the best he had ever had. 

“You have to go home,” Nika said to him afterwards. They didn’t waste any time getting up and getting dressed, both of them knowing immediately that this had been a mistake. He buttoned up his shirt with one hand as best he could, his back to her. “You can’t stay here.”

Alex cleared his throat. “I know.”

“You have to fix things with her.”

“Nik.” He turned around, watching her as she tied her hair up. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he couldn’t be talking about this right now, especially not with her. He already felt guilty enough as it was, for so many reasons, not the least of which was that he didn’t want Nika to think he had used her to try to feel better. He had loved her; he would always love her. “Come on.”

She zipped her sweatshirt up, coming closer to him and putting her hand on the flat of his stomach, reaching up with the other to cup his face. “Go back,” she said, closing her eyes as he leaned down, resting his forehead against hers and breathing her in. “Just start with that.”

So he did.

He stayed at his mom’s house for another week, not wanting to give up the pampering and relaxing and home cooking. He saw Nika a few more times, managing to keep his clothes on for all of them, for his sake and hers. They didn’t talk about what happened, choosing instead to push it under the rug which was probably where it belonged. 

The day before Alex left, he finally turned his phone on again, and it lit up with emails and missed calls and text messages. He scrolled through them, his heart in his throat, hoping Isabelle’s name would pop up amongst them. It didn’t, and he was surprised that he was so surprised. He shouldn’t have expected anything different.

He pulled up his favorites, hitting Jackie’s name and putting her on speaker as he folded his clothes into his suitcase. “Alex,” she said, answering on the first ring like she had been sitting next to the phone for ten days waiting for him to call, which was probably close to the truth. Relief flooded her voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” He wasn’t. “I’m good.” Absolutely not.

“You’re a liar.”

Alex gave up on folding the shirt he was holding, throwing it into his suitcase. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“I know,” she said simply. “I’ve been watching your accounts.”

“Stalker.”

“I miss you, Alex,” she said, her voice cracking in the middle of her sentence, and Alex was hit by such a pang of guilt that he thought for a moment that he might actually throw up. He was so busy thinking about himself that he hadn’t thought about how this might be affecting Jackie too. He was an asshole, but at least he knew it. 

“I miss you too.” He couldn’t have this conversation right now, could barely talk to her without the urge to ask about Isabelle pushing its way forward in his brain. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Text me your flight number.”

His mom hugged him for a long time at the airport when she dropped him off, unable or unwilling to let go. “Everything is going to be okay,” she whispered in his ear, finally pulling back. “You’re stronger than you know you are.”

It was a long plane ride back, middle America passing below him in fields and mountains and deserts. He stared out the window the entire time, trying to keep his thoughts at bay and failing miserably. He knew that when he got back everything would be different; he would have to sit down with Jackie and Dayo and the rest of his team and come up with a plan.

He didn’t know what he wanted, didn’t know where he could go from here. The one thing he did know was that he would have a very limited amount of time to figure it out. So he tried to prepare himself for it as best he could.

What he was not prepared for was the envelope sitting on his pillow. 

Jackie was right there waiting when he came down the escalators at McCarran International, running towards him and stopping herself at the last second, remembering all too quickly that he was hurt. “Alex,” she said, and he thought his heart might be breaking as he looked at her, hair tied up, pen stuck through it as always, no makeup, dark circles under her eyes. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

She stayed quiet through the car ride, and Alex didn’t volunteer any information. He didn’t say much of anything until they got back to the house. She helped him carry his suitcase upstairs, and he saw the envelope on his pillow immediately.

“What’s that?” he asked, not wanting to touch it, recognizing Isabelle’s handwriting on the front as soon as he got close enough.

Jackie shook her head, eyes wide. “I… I don’t know.” There was a long pause, both of them staring at it like it was a grenade. “Do you want me to open it?”

Alex stepped forward, grabbing it. This was ridiculous. “No, I’ll do it.” He took a deep breath, ripping it open with his teeth, the piece of paper inside fluttering to the floor. He reached down, grabbing it and flipping it over. “What the…” He turned to Jackie. “What the fuck is this?”

Jackie took it from him, her breath catching in her throat as she looked down at the check, Isabelle’s signature at the bottom, made out to Alex for eighty-thousand dollars.


	13. this is the measure of this man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / the wheel has settled in my hands  
> / this is the measure of this man  
> / i point the car north to you  
> / my route has scarred the country through  
> get on the road by tired pony

They were supposed to be getting ready to go to Bora Bora, Alex and Jackie. That had been the plan. They were going to go on vacation together for the last couple of weeks of February, just the two of them while Isabelle was in Paris with her sister. They were supposed to be scuba diving and swimming with dolphins and kayaking and sitting on white sand beaches in eighty degree weather.

Instead, Alex hadn’t gotten out of bed in three weeks.

According to Jackie, Isabelle hadn’t said much to her before she left. After Alex had kicked her out of her hospital room, she had gone straight back to the apartment, packing up her stuff. Jackie tried to reason with her, tried to get her to stay, but it was far too late, Alex’s words cutting too deep. She left nothing in the apartment except for that damn check.

They realized quickly that it was what Alex had paid Isabelle for the duration of their contract, ten thousand a week for eight weeks. He didn’t know what to think about it, had no idea what message she was trying to send. She didn’t want his money clearly, and that was fine, but it was what he owed her. At the very least, it was what she deserved. 

It had been just him and Jackie alone in that apartment for so long that it really shouldn’t have felt any different now. But it did. The whole place was dark and quiet, Angelo and Ava moving silently through the halls, trying not to be noticed. Jackie checked on him every five minutes, it felt like, yelling up to him from her office or bursting through the door. 

It was like they had gone back five years, back to the aftermath of Nika breaking up with him, except this time he was older and richer and even more heartbroken if that was possible. She made sure he was eating, had clean clothes, took a shower every couple of days, and wasn’t falling even further into his pit of despair. Having Bear around helped too, forcing Alex to do something, to get up and take him for a walk every morning, even if the damn thing only reminded him of what he had lost.

His days were gray and his nights were long and he alternated between feeling numb and feeling like he had a pit in his stomach the size of Texas.

This was his life now. He had better get used to it.

He finally watched the coverage of the fight, knew he had to do it or he would make himself crazy thinking about it. It was just as bad as he remembered it, and watching it was like having an out-of-body experience. He had seen hours and hours of footage of his fights, used it to train, figure out where his weaknesses were so he could get better. But he had never watched footage of himself getting submitted before. And it sucked. 

It was made only worse by the fact that he had made easy mistakes, and watching the film only reinforced the thought that he should have won that fight easily. It should’ve been called as a TKO when he landed that big punch, but it hadn’t and he couldn’t blame his failures on bad officiating. They sat squarely on his shoulders. 

“You have to stop watching that,” Jackie said, breezing into the room and pulling the curtains open, bathing the room in light, the strip glittering below them in the cold air of a January mid-afternoon. “It’s not helping.”

Alex picked up the remote, ignoring her and scrolling back a few frames to watch, for the hundredth time, the exact moment Dominic pinned him in that armbar. “I can’t,” he said.

She sat down on the bed next to him, propping her head up on her arm. “Does this at least mean you’re going to agree to a rematch?”

Dana had sent Alex a couple of texts right after the fight, checking up on him and seeing if he was okay. There had been no talk about another fight, whether or not Alex wanted it, and he was thanking God that he had the gym and that his contract was fixed so at least he had money coming in. The way he saw it was that there was no rush to figure anything out. Jackie (and the rest of his team for that matter) felt differently.

“You’re not giving up,” she told him, not even allowing him a chance to argue with her. “I don’t care if you fight Dominic again but this is not it for you.” 

“Jackie,” he groaned, pressing the heel of his hands into his eyes, trying to stave off the headache that he could feel building in his forehead. “Give it a rest.”

“No. I’m not letting you give up on this too, not after you gave up on-”

“Stop.” In the first few days after he had gotten back from Iowa, she had tried to bring up Isabelle every second she got. He had been forced to explain to her, in excruciating detail, what he had done, earning himself a giant lecture. She tried to come up with a plan, doing her Jackie thing that she always did and taking over, but Alex couldn’t listen to it, instituting an immediate ban on even speaking Isabelle’s name in his house. She had moved on; he needed to too.

“You’ve barely left this room in two weeks, Alex. When is enough going to be enough?”

He rolled over, pulling the blankets over his head and hoping that she just went away, leaving him to wallow in his grief. “I’m not ready yet, Jac,” he said, his voice muffled by the fabric. “Please.”

She put her hand on his shoulder, warm through the blanket, and he squeezed his eyes shut, the pit in his stomach threatening to swallow him up. The bed shifted as she got up, and he was once again completely alone. 

Alex should have known that Dayo wouldn’t leave him to his own devices for long. Sure enough, he showed up on the first day of February, busting into Alex’s room at eight o’clock in the damn morning. No wonder he and Jackie were together; they were both crazy morning people who made it their sole mission to torture Alex as much as humanly possible.

“Ludwig,” he said, standing in the door of Alex’s room. “Time to get up.”

Alex ignored him, pulling a pillow over his head, trying desperately to go back to sleep. He had been having the most incredible dream in which he was still the reigning middleweight champion of the world and his girlfriend hadn’t up and left him. He would like to go back to that, thank you very much, if not in real life than at least in the dream. “Go ‘way.”

“I will not. And I’m not going to sit around and watch you do this to yourself.”

Alex hadn’t seen his team at all since the fight, not Mark or Dayo or even Nick. He didn’t know if they were staying away because they were afraid of him or because they didn’t know what to say or because they were pissed off. And honestly, he didn’t really care. He could barely even stand to look at his phone; every time he picked it up, he hoped against hope that there would be a text from Isabelle waiting there, but there never was, and eventually he just stopped checking his phone altogether, counting on Jackie to keep him informed if anything happened or the world started to end. More than it already had.

Before he knew what was happening, his blankets were gone, thrown on the floor, and Dayo’s voice was getting louder and louder. “Get. The fuck. Up.”

“God, what do you want?” Alex snapped at him, rolling over and burying his head in his arms. 

“I want you to get up and stop acting like your life has ended. Because it hasn’t. There are people counting on you.”

That sobered Alex up real quick, his mind immediately snapping to Jackie. He had put that poor girl through enough, that was for sure, but he hadn’t thought (recently, at least) about the fact that he was her entire livelihood. She gave up her career for him. And if he wasn’t fighting, she wasn’t making money either. He sat up, trying to quell the urge to crack his shoulder.

That part of his life, at least, was going exactly how it was supposed to. He was still sleeping in a sling, his arm propped up on a mountain of pillows that Jackie had somehow engineered into the perfect position. It felt great, better than it had in years. In a couple of weeks, he would be able to drive and lift things again, and he was already out of the sling during the day. His doctors were telling him that he would be ready to fight again in eight months, which was a better prognosis than he ever could have hoped for.

He just didn’t know if the rest of him would be ready. 

“I can’t work out,” he said lamely, stating the obvious, and Dayo stared at him with narrowed eyes.

“Duh. But you’re going to get off your ass and come to the gym. There are dozens of fighters there who could use you.”

Even the thought of going to the gym made Alex’s blood run cold. He couldn’t walk in there, into somewhere that was sacred space to him, and face everyone after he had let them all down. He opened his mouth to protest, but Dayo cut him off.

“Nope. I don’t even want to hear it. Get dressed and meet me down in the kitchen or twenty minutes. I swear to God, I’ll kick your ass just to prove that I still can.”

So Alex got up, took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs, following orders like the good little soldier he was. Ninety percent of it was out of spite; he knew Dayo wasn’t expecting him to get his shit together, but at least he was up and moving. Bear bounced around his feet, skidding into the kitchen and breaking apart Dayo and Jackie.

“Ew,” Alex said, frowning at them as he passed by on his way to the coffee maker. Jackie looked guilty, Dayo not so much. “Couples. Boo. Hiss.”

“Shut up,” Jackie said, her face turning even redder than her hair. Alex just rolled his eyes at her, trying not to pretend that even seeing them together was like a knife through his heart. She deserved to be happy. More than anyone. He just hated that it was happening right now. 

“Are you ready to go?” Dayo asked, but it was not at all a question.

Alex sat down at the counter, eyeing him squarely. “Can I eat first?” That wasn’t a question either. They stayed there in silence until Jackie cleared her throat, bumping her wrist against Dayo’s arm. 

“Fine.” Dayo sat down, pulling his phone out. “But do it quickly.”

Jackie jumped up, grabbing a plate for Alex out of the fridge and heating it up in the microwave. He tried to stop her, hated that she was babying him, but there was no stopping that woman. 

They sat there, sun streaming in the windows and the silence sitting heavy around them. Jackie was typing furiously on her laptop, Dayo wandering away into the living room. Alex pulled his phone out, setting it down on the counter and leaning over it as he ate his eggs. He opened Instagram, ignoring the flood of notifications because the first picture that popped up was Isabelle.

He had been trying not to obsessively check her social media accounts, and mostly it didn’t matter whether he did or not because she had been radio silent ever since the fight. He was dying to know where she was, what she was doing, who she was hanging out with, but he had gotten absolutely no help on that front from Jackie. And now, suddenly, here she was.

Seeing her, even just on Instagram, took his breath away, and his stomach hurt so badly that he had to put his fork down. He glanced up at Jackie, making sure she was still engrossed in her computer screen, as she would most decidedly not approve of what he was doing. He looked back down at his phone, subconsciously pressing his fist into his chest as if that would stop his heart from hurting.

She was with Jack and Leven, out at the club; Alex couldn’t tell from the picture but it looked like XS or Light, and he wondered immediately if she was going there because she knew Alex almost never did, knew that he chose to stay closer to home at Marquee or Jewel or 1 Oak. Not that he been going out at all, but it’s not like Isabelle would know that one way or the other.

They were sitting one the back of one of the banquettes at the club, Jack in the middle, the girls on either side, arms around him and drinks in their hands. The first thing that caught his eye was that she wasn’t smiling, had her head tilted towards Jack and was looking at the camera out of the corner of her eye. The second was that she was wearing her Love bracelet, the gold gleaming with the flash of the camera. 

He was going to read too much into this, he could tell immediately, and he hit the home button on his phone, the picture disappearing. He knew he should unfollow her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Hell, he couldn’t even get himself to check to see if she had unfollowed him because he didn’t want to know the answer.

He picked up his fork again, trying to choke down his breakfast and not tip off Jackie that something was up. He wondered if Isabelle was thinking the same things he was, if she was checking his social media to see where he was, how he was doing, what had changed. He hadn’t posted anything since the fight either, trying to ignore all of the Instagram comments and Twitter notifications asking where he was and if he was coming back.

“I have to talk to you about something,” Jackie said suddenly, breaking the silence. Alex could see Dayo on the couch, sinking lower and lower like he was trying to hide. 

“Okay.”

She cleared her throat, shutting her computer. “The Sports Illustrated article is coming out next month.”

Fuck. He had totally forgotten about that in the aftermath of everything that had happened. It seemed like a different time, a different world, a different Alex. 

“I know it’s bad timing. But there’s nothing I can do about it. And believe me, I have tried.”

He didn’t doubt it. He had heard Jackie in her office a couple of times over the last week, heard her yelling into the phone. Alex shook his head, swallowing hard.

“Alex. What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” he said .”There’s nothing we can do.”

There was a pause, Jackie choosing her words carefully. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stood up, pushing the bar stool into the counter and dropping his plate into the sink. He couldn’t sit in this kitchen any longer, had to get out even if his only option was to go to the gym. “Dayo, let’s go.”

Dayo was silent on the ride to the gym, didn’t so much as even glance at Alex, and Alex knew that he was pissed off. He just didn’t know why. There was a whole myriad of things it could be: that Alex had lost in the first place, that he had fucked off to Iowa, that he was being an asshole to Jackie, that he was refusing to make a decision about the future of his career. And at this point, Alex didn’t really care. Dayo could pick one and fuck off. He had enough on his plate. 

The second they pushed through the front doors of the gym, Alex felt bad for all the shitty thoughts he had been harboring for the last few weeks, building up in the corners of his brain until he could barely see straight. Everyone was there, waiting for him, not just Mark and Nick but all of his teammates and fighters and people who worked out at the gym. Even Miesha was there, front and center.

A crowd of people descended on him as soon as the door swung shut behind him, moving carefully around his injured shoulder but clapping him on the back and hugging him and fist bumping him. Miesha pushed her way through, elbowing guys much larger than her out of the way to through to him.

“Alex,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and hugging him tightly around the neck. “I’ve been so fucking worried about you.”

He pulled back to look at her. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t pull that bullshit with me.” Her voice was raspy, barely audible over the chatter of the people around them. “I’ve lost before too. It sucks unbelievably, like nothing you could ever imagine.”

With her words, the knot in Alex’s chest loosened just a tiny bit. He wasn’t alone. He had never been alone. And they sure as shit weren’t going to leave him to his own devices now.

Being there wasn’t nearly as horrible as he had been anticipating; it still hurt like a bitch, but this was his home and he couldn’t deny that. He wandered around, watching people fight and sometimes jumping in to correct their form or give them a tip. Coaching came as naturally to him as breathing, and every time he stopped next to someone to talk to them, it felt like a little bit of weight came off his chest, like he could breathe again for a moment.

Miesha stayed close to his side the whole time, eyeing him carefully, and he knew she had been dispatched by Dayo to watch him. He didn’t say anything, glad to have the company and the distraction. She was right; losing was the worst thing you could think of, but she was living proof that you could come back from that, better than ever.

For the first time in a month, the hours in the day flew by. It was funny how quickly it could go when you weren’t holed up in your room watching ESPN obsessively and refusing to go outside. He would never tell Dayo, but he was thankful that his coach had dragged him out of there. His head already felt clearer.

At the end of the day, everyone gathered around him for a picture, and for a few moments it felt like nothing had changed, like he was still a top ranked fighter and someone to look up to. When he got back to the apartment, he scrolled through the pictures, choosing a couple of them for Instagram. He paused over the picture of him and Miesha before hitting okay, uploading it captionless to Instagram, knowing that no matter what he said someone would take it the wrong way. 

So what if he sat there for hours refreshing his notifications to see if a certain someone’s name popped up? At least he had left his room that day.

* * *

Isabelle had gone to Paris.

Alex didn’t know what he was expecting, but after he had gotten that check back, he assumed she wouldn’t go. He wanted her to, was glad that the plane tickets hadn’t been in that damn envelope too, the same way he was glad when he saw her Love bracelet in that picture of her at the club. Sure, it was still a stab to the heart, but in a better way than it had been for the last six weeks. He hoped that every time she looked at him she thought about him, even if it was just for a second.

He had purposely booked her plane ticket for February sixteenth, the same day he and Jackie had planned to go to Bora Bora. That way they could have Valentine’s Day together. This was exactly why Alex shouldn’t be in charge of planning anything.

He rolled over in bed, grabbing his phone off his nightstand immediately like he did every morning. Six o’clock, a whole half hour before his alarm was even set to go off. He had really been trying lately, trying to pretend like he was still on a training schedule, even though he still wasn’t really doing anything with his days.

Alex grabbed his glasses, shoving them onto his face and opening Instagram simultaneously, bypassing all of his other notifications. He had posted a picture of Bear last night, thought that maybe Isabelle would like it. She hadn’t, but she had just uploaded something. 

God, she looked exactly like her sister. Alex had never met Madeline, obviously, but he felt like he had after hearing Isabelle talk about her so much. She was a singer and a songwriter and she had been living in France for years, long before Isabelle had graduated college and moved to Las Vegas. 

“I miss her all the time,” Isabelle had told Alex one night back in December. She was sitting upright, pillow across her lap, the moon streaming in the window behind her and lighting up the side of her face. He was propped up on one elbow, trying to act like he wasn’t outright staring at her. He was, and she knew it. 

“You guys were close?”

“Closer than you could believe,” she said. “Although I guess you get it more than most people. You did bring Nick out here just to be with you twenty-four, seven.”

“I have abandonment issues,” he said jokingly, rolling over onto his back just so he would be forced to tear his eyes away from her. 

Alex brought his phone closer to his face, trying to see if that was a Camp Valhalla t-shirt she was wearing under her jacket. She was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, her arm around Madeline, beanie pulled low over her forehead. She looked unbelievably happy, and if Alex was a good person, that might make him feel better. But he wasn’t. 

For just a second, he considered liking the picture, letting her know that he was thinking about her all the time, and his finger hovered over the heart beneath it. Thankfully, he came to his senses, shaking his head to clear it and scrolling down to the next photo, the next person, the next distraction. 

He had gotten his life into some sort of semblance of a routine over the past few weeks, ever since he had started going back to the gym. He got up early every day, had breakfast, took Bear for a walk, and sat in the sauna, all before eight in the morning. It was definitely an improvement, although he honestly couldn’t tell if he felt any better. But he figured it couldn’t hurt; he was either sitting in his room thinking about Isabelle or sitting in the gym thinking about Isabelle, and at least the gym afforded him a better chance at a distraction. 

He still couldn’t lift anything heavy, but he could run and swim and his shoulder felt better than ever. Maybe he should have done this damn surgery years ago. His life was a whole mess of what-ifs lately. 

Jackie had been trying her absolute hardest not to badger him to make a decision, but as the days and weeks dragged on, he knew she would start being more persistent. She was getting calls from magazines left and right, all of them wanting to be the one to break the news of Alex’s comeback. But that was the problem; he still didn’t know if there was going to be a comeback.

He put his phone down, rolling over onto his back and pushing Bear with his hip. That damn dog would take up the entire bed if Alex let him; he was growing like a weed. The picture of Isabelle flashed in his brain every time he blinked. She was clearly moving on, pretending like nothing had happened, like the last few months hadn’t changed his life completely. Maybe it was about time for him to move on too. 

* * *

**Victory or Valhalla: The Alexander Ludwig Story  
** By Kelsey Hendrix  
This story appears in the March 1, 2019 issue of Sports Illustrated. 

Victory or Valhalla is Alexander Ludwig’s motto.

The twenty-seven year old fighter made his professional debut in the UFC in 2012, fighting Yoel Romero in 2014 for the middleweight world title. He has held that title ever since.

“Valhalla is a big part of Vikings mythology,” Ludwig says, sitting in the middle of his gym, named Valkyrie after another Norse legend. “It’s where you go when you die, if you’re one of the worthy ones. So when we say Victory or Valhalla it means that we’ll either win or we’ll die trying.”

Valhalla and Valkyrie aren’t the only tributes to Viking legend; Ludwig’s entire team is built around the concept. Hand-painted runes sprawl across the walls of the gym, located just off the Last Vegas strip, symbolizing strength of will, growth, protection, success, and honor. Tattoos decorate Ludwig’s arms and chest, depicting a shield, more Vikings runes, and a giant bear. His fight name is Ironside, after a legendary Vikings warrior.

Ludwig is a warrior himself, undefeated in his professional career. “I plan to retire undefeated,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly, like it is no big deal to say so. And to him, it isn’t. 

His come-up story is one for the books. He grew up wrestling in a small town just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. “Two stop signs and a gas station,” he says. “My mom still lives there. She put me and my brother in wrestling young; I think she thought that if we were fighting for sport, then maybe we would do it less at home, but all it did was teach us how to really hurt each other.”

Ludwig’s brother, Nicholas, joined the team in 2014, just before Romero vs. Ludwig. His addition to the team played a big part in the improvement of Ludwig’s ground game. Pound for pound, he is one of the best fighters in the world, a deadly combination of heavy hands and light feet. Dana White, never one to understate anything says that Ludwig is one of his best and most consistent fighters. “Alex’s fights do not go to decision. Period.”

His record stands at sixteen wins and zero losses, all of his victories coming by knockout or submission. “If you have to leave it in the hands of the judges, you’ve already lost, in my opinion,” Ludwig says. 

At twenty-seven years old, Ludwig has built an empire, looking out over the gym, his UFC contract, a Nike brand deal, and his future from the sprawling Las Vegas penthouse he shares with girlfriend, Isabelle Fuhrman, and agent, Jacqueline Emerson. 

“Jackie found me. I was fighting in bars and rec halls and back alleys and I had no idea what the hell I was doing or what I wanted, other than to keep fighting.” Ludwig looks over at his UFC belt, sitting next to his Camp Valhalla gym bag. “She brought me here.”

Emerson is a graduate of USC, and she worked as a publicist before going back to the university for law school. “We don’t have a normal relationship,” she says. “He’s so much more than just my client; he’s my best friend and he’s like a brother to me. I’ve been right there next to him for all of the big moments in his life so far, and I’m really lucky that I get to see him grow and evolve as a fighter and as a person.”

Ludwig has dominated the sport of mixed martial arts for the last five years, proving to everyone that he is not only the biggest name in his division, but one of the biggest names in the sport. He has twelve million followers on Instagram, another nine million on Twitter. There is no part of his life that is private.

“It’s hard to get used to,” says Ludwig’s girlfriend, Isabelle Fuhrman. “You know, everyone has something to say about your life, or you go out to dinner and get your picture taken a hundred times, or we’re at the airport or shopping or the club and people come up to him and want autographs. That part was really weird for me at first.”

Ludwig’s private life was splashed across the media earlier this year when a woman claimed to be pregnant with his child. “Of course it wasn’t true,” Ludwig says. “It’s just something that comes with the territory.”

He says this calmly, his hand on Fuhrman’s leg as she sits next to him. “You just have to take it in stride,” she says. “I know who he is, and so does everyone else around him.”

The big concern for Ludwig’s camp was, of course, that all of the drama would be a distraction, something he could ill afford. “We all work together,” Dayo Okeniyi says. “I work really closely with Jackie to balance his training schedule and his personal life.”

Okeniyi was one of the top middleweight fighters in the UFC before retiring at twenty-seven to open Valkyrie with Ludwig. He has been his head coach for Ludwig’s entire career, and he has seen him through every single one of his professional fights. “He’s more talented than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Okeniyi says bluntly. “There’s no question. So when he came out here it was a matter of refining that talent. We brought Mark in to be his grappling coach, and his brother came out a couple of years ago to join the team too.”

“I would have nothing without them,” Ludwig says. “Jackie or Isabelle or Dayo or Mark or Nick… I would be totally lost.”

Family has always been the most important thing to Ludwig. Raised by a single mom, he was very close to his three siblings growing up, and they never miss one of his fights, flying in from around the country to support him. His upcoming fight against Dominic Nicholas on New Year’s Eve will be no different.

Nicholas is an up-and-comer in the UFC with a professional record of ten and oh. Many people say that he is the next big thing; Ludwig is not convinced. 

“He’s young,” he says diplomatically, but his eyes tell a different story. “He has a lot to learn about this sport and about the UFC. And I’m for sure not going to let him learn it on my time.”

Ludwig intends to make it a gloriously fast fight, as many of his fights turn out to be. He has never been known to draw things out, and this will be no different. “It’s personal this time,” he says, glancing at Fuhrman. 

Nicholas and Ludwig have a checkered history; most everyone in the fighting community knows that Nicholas appeared at Valkyrie one day to challenge Ludwig to the title fight. “It’s not how we usually do things,” Dana White says. “But they both wanted the fight. You don’t disrespect someone like Alexander Ludwig like that and get away with it.” Nicholas has also been very vocal on social media, directing his comments towards both Ludwig and Fuhrman.

“I’m not going to let him take this from me,” Ludwig says. “It’s Victory or Valhalla.”

_Edit: Ludwig lost the New Year’s Eve fight, submitted by armbar in the second round. He has undergone surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff. It is unknown at this time when - or if - he will return._


	14. now look where we stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i'm here to guide you, give me your hands  
> / tell me your thoughts and your dreams and your plans  
> / they told me i never could be what i am  
> / now look where we stand  
> kindest regards by witt lowry

The day the Sports Illustrated article came out, Alex finally deposited that damn check. He had been carrying it around with him, moving it from his gym bag to his nightstand to his car, even setting it on his towel at the edge of the pool, which made Jackie crazy.

“You have to just cash it,” she said a hundred times a day. “I know you’ve been rich for a long time and don’t remember what it’s like, but I guarantee you that she’s checking her bank account every single day waiting for that money to disappear.” 

“I feel as if you are forgetting how many days we made ketchup sandwiches because our bank accounts were zeroed out.” 

“I could never forget. The ketchup sandwich era of my life is burned into my brain. Don’t change the subject.” 

There were only a few times that Alex ever regretted giving Jackie complete control over his bank accounts. Once was when he tried to buy a full size Stormtroopers suit from Sharper Image and she read him the riot act. Another was when he got really drunk and texted her to ask her to negotiate a deal with the owners of 1 Oak. She had flatly refused, telling him that the last thing he needed was a nightclub. He was still mad about that one. 

And once was now. He knew that if he didn’t deposit the check, she would sign his name, as she was legally allowed to do, and deposit it herself. 

It was a ridiculous amount of money any way you looked at it, but seeing it in one lump sum like that almost made Alex feel sick to his stomach. He saw it as a very visceral, tangible reminder of what their relationship had been - strictly professional. He remembered sitting at Bazaar with Jackie, listening to her tell him not to sleep with this girl because it was just a business deal. They had all really dropped the ball on that one. 

The morning that the article came out was a tense one for all of them. He knew Jackie had barely slept the night before because he hadn’t either; he had been up at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling, and he heard her moving around downstairs, shutting cabinet doors and running water. She was making hot chocolate from scratch, like she always did when she was stressed.

He rolled out of bed, kicking his feet onto the ground and trying not to disturb Bear, who was actually sleeping soundly for once. The dog was growing like a weed, became less puppy and more lanky, taking up even more of Alex’s bed. It crossed his mind for just a second that if Isabelle was still here, it would be a tight fit for the three of them, but he batted that thought away as quickly as it had popped up.

He didn’t bother putting a shirt on, grabbing his sweatpants from the floor and hopping into them as he went out into the hallway. He stopped at the stairs, hesitating. He knew that if he went down there, they were going to have a conversation, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready.

And then Alex heard Jackie crying.

He took the stairs two or three at a time, practically breaking his own neck in the process as he slid into the kitchen, smacking his hip bone on the edge of the counter.

“Ow, fuck, Jesus!”

Jackie whipped around, wiping her eyes. “Oh, shit. Did I wake you?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, rubbing his hip. “What’s going on?”

“What are you talking about?” She turned away from him, moving back to the stove and stirring the contents of the pot in front of her. 

“Jackie. You are not honestly going to stand right in front of me and pretend like you’re not crying.”

She didn’t turn around again, but he could see her shoulders shaking and heard the breath coming out of her lungs in short puffs, like she was barely keeping it together. “Jackie.” He took a step towards her, and she turned, burying her face in his chest and immediately soaking his skin with tears. “Oh, Jackie, c’mon. Don’t do this.” 

They stood there like that for a long time, the hot chocolate bubbling on the stove behind them until Alex reached over and turned it off. He held her tightly, letting her cry. They could all use a good cry right about now.

“I’ve been so worried,” she finally hiccuped out, stepping back and pushing herself up onto the kitchen island. The moonlight streamed in through the window, lighting up her face and shining off the tear tracks streaking down her cheeks. “You have no idea.”

Alex stepped closer, standing in between her legs and dropping his head onto her shoulder. She laced her fingers in the short hair at the back of his neck, and he put his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry, Jac,” he murmured into her neck. “I’ve been such an asshole.”

She didn’t disagree with him, but she tightened her arms around him. “We have to figure out how to get through this,” she whispered. “I can’t do it by myself.”

Alex knew, in that way you just know things sometimes, that this was a pivotal moment in their relationship and his career. Jackie never, ever, ever asked for help; she was a one-woman team, a superhero, taking care of everything so that Alex didn’t have to, fixing things and cleaning up his messes and anticipating what he needed before he even knew it himself. But this was different.

“What do you need me to do?”

She swallowed, her throat moving under his forehead, and he pulled back, pushing her hair out of her face. “I need you to be okay. You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to know what you want. But I can’t deal with being this stressed out all the time.”

“I’m okay,” he said automatically, knowing he would say anything to make her feel better, even if it wasn’t true.

“It’s not enough to just say it, Alex.” She saw right through him. 

“She’s gone,” Alex blurted out. He hadn’t talked about Isabelle to anyone but Nika, and he hadn’t meant to. “She’s not coming back. It’s time to move on now, so that’s what I’ll do.”

“Are you sure?” She tilted her head, looking at him, and he couldn’t read the expression in her eyes, didn’t know if it was hurt or sadness or worry. 

He took a deep breath, pretending like even thinking about Isabelle didn’t send waves of pain crashing over his heart, smashing it up against his ribs and taking his breath away. “I’m sure. We have to move forward.”

“Okay.” Jackie let out a deep breath. “Let’s start over.”

And here they were, starting over, eating breakfast together the next morning on the floor in the living room, just like they used to. The copy of Sports Illustrated that had been messengered over early that morning was sitting in the middle of the coffee table, staring up at them. Alex’s picture was splashed across the cover, taunting him. Even he had to admit it looked great. Neither one of them touched the magazine; they just sat there, Alex spooning Cocoa Puffs into his mouth and refusing to look down at it. 

Finally, Jackie grabbed it. “This is stupid,” she said, flipping open to the index and scanning down the page. She found Alex’s name quickly, turning the pages loudly before she came to the right one, smoothing it out onto the table. Alex opened his mouth, but she held up a hand, and he could see her eyes moving across the words, caught a glimpse of the pictures before he looked away, resting his head in his hand and staring out the window. 

It felt like she was reading for a hundred years, and he was getting more and more jumpy by the second, finally dropping his spoon into his bowl with a clatter. “Jackie, come on.”

She looked up at him, biting her lip. “It’s really good.”

“Give it to me.” He grabbed it out of her hand, finding the page quickly, his hands shaking. Every word he read was like a stab to the heart; if he had won that fight, he would be over the moon right now, but knowing that this article was out there, knowing that people would read it after witnessing his fall from grace was liable to bring on a full-blown panic attack.

“Alex.” Jackie grabbed it back from, throwing it over her shoulder and onto the couch behind her. “Let it ride. We’ve moved on.”

He stood up, his chest feeling tighter by the second. “Right. Moved on.” The sentence “I plan to retire undefeated” flashed in his brain, followed closely by the part where they named Isabelle as his girlfriend. “I need to go for a run.”

Jackie stood up. “Do you want me to come?”

“No.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead as he passed her, taking the stairs up to his room two at a time. “I’m okay. I’ll be back.”

He was gone for a long time, knew Jackie would be worrying even if he told her not to. He went up and down the strip, his baseball cap pulled low over his head, AirPods stuffed in his ears and music blasting, hoping no one would recognize him. Thankfully, it was early and cold and no one else was out roaming the streets. 

He stopped in front of his building, trying to catch his breath. The cold air burned his lungs every time he took a breath, his chest tightening and every breath visible. It shouldn’t be this cold for March, but that’s how his life was going lately. He was so lost in his own head that he didn’t even notice someone approach him from the side, and he practically jumped out of his skin when she grabbed his arm.

“Lev?” He pulled his earbud out of his ear, sticking it in his pocket. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He hadn’t seen here since Fight Night but she looked exactly the same, still blonde and tall and gorgeous. The only difference was she looked considerably more angry with him than she normally did. “What the hell are you doing?” She cocked her head, planting a hand on her hip and glaring at him.

This was not going to be fun.

“Come on,” Alex said, sighing wearily. “It’s too cold to have this conversation out here.”

She followed him into the building, standing next to him in the elevator in stony silence. He didn’t know if she was still hanging out with Mark or whatever it was they were doing. He fully acknowledged that he had been a bad friend for the last couple of months, but he just couldn’t bring himself to ask Mark about it, knowing that somehow Isabelle would come into it.

The apartment was quiet when they stepped into it, the lights off and the breakfast dishes cleaned up. Jackie’s office door was closed, and he could the familiar sound of SportsCenter blaring behind it. He put his phone down on the counter, pulling his hood down and turning to look at Leven.

“So.” He waited for the storm. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” she exploded, throwing her car keys down next to his phone and hitting him - actually hitting him - in the chest. He rubbed the spot, glaring at her. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck did you do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Alex legitimately thought she might throw something at him, and he was suddenly grateful for the fact that Jackie liked a minimalistic kitchen with nothing on the counters. 

“I promised her I wouldn’t do this,” Leven said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and Alex’s heart jumped at the thought of Isabelle, even if Leven hadn’t said her name. “But I don’t keep my promises when it comes to fuck boys who can’t keep theirs.”

Alex glanced behind him, making sure Jackie’s office door was still closed. He didn’t think she would come save him even if he wanted her to, and he especially didn’t want to have to try to explain himself to both of them. “Come on,” he said, grabbing Leven’s arm. She snatched it back, and he grabbed it again just to annoy her. “Upstairs.”

He shoved her unceremoniously into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Speak.”

“Can you sit? You’re making me nervous.”

“God only knows what you’ve done in this bed, Alexander.”

“So sit on the chair,” he snapped. For once, she listened to him, sinking into the chair and looking out the window over the strip. He unzipped his sweatshirt, turning his back on her as he changed his shirt, ignoring the fact that she was pointedly clearing his throat until he was dressed. “Now can you explain to me what you’re doing here?”

“I want answers.”

“I don’t know if I can give you any.”

There was no universe in which Leven would ever give up that easily. “Not good enough.” 

He sat down on his bed, facing her. He saw her glance at the scar cutting through his eyebrow, the hair refusing to grow back where he had gotten the stitches. “What?”

“Are you okay?” she asked. God, he was tired of hearing that.

“I’m fine.”

“Your shoulder?”

“Better.”

“Good.” There was an awkward silence. The weight of the past was sitting between them and Alex could barely see around it. He took a deep breath, clearing his throat. “How is she?”

“Not good, Alexander.” Leven sighed, like she had been waiting a long time for Alex to ask about her. “Really not good. What do you expect?”

“I know.” He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing at the look on Leven’s face. “I fucked up.”

“At least you can admit it.” She pulled her legs up onto the chair, hugging her knees. “Tell me what happened.”

Alex knew this day was coming, knew that he would have to explain himself to everyone; that’s what happened when everyone else loved your girlfriend as much as you did. He didn’t just send her away from him; he sent her away from everyone. So he explained the situation to Leven as best he could. She sat there quietly, listening, and he didn’t know if he had ever heard her go this long without speaking before.

“That doesn’t… that doesn’t make any sense,” she said finally when he was done.

“Sure it does.”

“No. It doesn’t.” She leaned forward, dropping one leg to the ground. “You don’t think you’re good enough for her, so you broke up with her.”

“Yes.”

“But she doesn’t care about that.”

“She should. Or maybe she does and you just don’t know it.”

“You really are as dumb as you look, aren’t you?”

Alex threw a pillow at her head, and she barely managed to grab it before it hit her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“She misses you, you dumb fuck.” Leven threw the pillow back at him. “I’m serious. She’s been out of town for a while, since the fight actually, but I talk to her every day. She won’t even say your name. If she didn’t care, she would let me bring it up without biting my damn head off.” 

This was more information than he had gotten about Isabelle in the past two months, and he felt for a couple of seconds like he might actually throw up, which would be exactly what Leven deserved. But then he would have to clean it up off his bedroom floor, and he wasn’t really feeling that right now. He didn’t know what to address first. “She’s not in Vegas?”

“She went back to Atlanta right after the fight. And now she’s in Paris. She extended her trip for a couple more weeks.”

“I… uh…” He rubbed his temple, feeling a headache coming on. “Is she mad at me?”

“She won’t talk about it, Alex. Believe me. I have tried.”

“Then how do you know she misses me?”

“Because I saw how she was when she was with you. And because she dipped out of here faster than you would believe. And because she won’t let me even say your name around her.” Alex sure wasn’t going to tell Leven that he had instituted that same rule in the apartment. “So what are you going to do about this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to fight again?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

Alex lay back, shoving the pillow under his head and closing his eyes. He was far too sober for this conversation. “It’s been a shitty couple of months, Lev. I have no idea where my life is going or what’s going to happen next.”

His relationship with Leven was more complicated than he had realized until he really thought about it. He liked her a lot; he always had, but she was Isabelle’s best friend and Mark’s… something. Alex wasn’t really sure what he was to her, whether she would consider him her friend or just her best friend’s dumb ex-boyfriend. They had always gotten along, but they had never been close.

So, of course, she would be the one sitting here in front of him right now, and he knew that sooner or later he would be forced to make a decision. 

A big sigh escaped from his mouth before he could stop it, and without warning he felt tears pricking behind his eyes, his face growing hot. He slung his arm over his face, trying to keep Leven from noticing, but it was far too late for that. 

“Alex.” She hopped up off the chair, throwing herself down onto the bed next to him. He thought about sitting up, but he just didn’t have the energy. She propped her head up on her hand, blonde hair falling everywhere, and when he opened one eye, he could see that she was staring at him, just a few inches away.

“Lev.”

“This bed is hella comfortable,” she said, pressing down on the mattress with her free hand. “No wonder she slept in here every night.” Alex felt his face get even hotter, knew a red flush was working its way down his chest. “Although,” Leven continued. “Maybe there were other reasons for that.”

“There weren’t.” Leven blinked at him. “I know you know everything, so let’s not pretend like we don’t.”

She hitched a shoulder up, shrugging. “Fair.”

He finally spoke the question that had been burning his brain since the second he had opened up his dumb mouth in that stupid hospital. “Do you think there’s anything I can do? To fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Leven said swiftly. “Believe me, if I did, then I would tell you. But until I can get her to talk about it, I’m just in the dark as you are.” He let out a big breath, felt like someone was sitting on his chest, like he just couldn’t get enough air. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“If I say no, will that stop you?”

“Good point.”

“What is it?”

“Have you slept with anyone else? Since Is - since her?”

Alex squeezed his eyes shut, trying to decide if he could pretend like he hadn’t heard the question. “Yes.”

“More than one someone?”

His mind flashed back to Nika, to Lia, to Alexa. He had gotten a little too cavalier in his personal life over the last couple of weeks, trying to push the thought of Isabelle from his mind. He needed to just clear out the contacts in his phone because it was far too easy for him to call someone at three in the morning and ask them to come over when he couldn’t fall asleep. Alex cleared his throat. “Yes.”

“Stupid.”

“I know.”

Leven rolled over onto her stomach, pillowing her head on her arms and looking at him. Well, if she was here, he might as well ask all his questions. He rolled over, grabbing the check from his nightstand and handing it to her. “You know anything about this?”

She grabbed it, bringing it closer to her face and squinting. The girl refused to wear glasses, no matter how much she needed them. “What the fuck is this? What - Alex, what the fuck? This is a lot of money.”

“That’s what I paid her.” Alex cleared his throat. 

“Holy shit.” Leven’s eyes widened, and it looked like she had a death grip on the piece of paper. “Holy shit. I knew it was a lot but I didn’t know it was this much. Wait, what? Why do you have this?”

“She left it here at some point. I found it on my pillow when I got back from my mom’s.”

“That was weeks ago.” She turned it over in his hands, seeing how ragged it was. “Dude, you gotta deposit this.”

Alex snatched it back. “I know. Believe me, Jackie has been on my ass about it.”

“Because it’s eighty thousand dollars, Alex!”

“It’s just money, Lev. I don’t care about the money.”

“That’s because you have it,” she snapped, and he shrugged.

“Fair enough.”

Leven sat up, glancing at her watch. “I’ve gotta run.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows, looking at her. She leaned over, kissed his cheek before standing up. “You’re still my friend, Alex. She’s my best friend, but I care about you too.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He knew that he couldn’t say anything else, felt a lump forming in his throat. 

“Call me if you need anything. I’m serious.” 

Once she was gone, Alex flopped back onto his bed, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face into his pillow. He could think about it for as many hours as he wanted, but he didn’t think he would ever be able to figure out how his life had got to this point. A few months ago, he was used to being alone. A few months ago, he didn’t know what it felt like to really be in love again. A few months ago, he was one of the top fighters in the world. 

And now, here he was, in a lonely apartment, his heart breaking in two all over again every time he woke up and realized Isabelle was gone.

It was time to move on.

He got up, went downstairs, pushed Jackie’s office door open. She looked up, her computer screen lighting up her face. “You okay?”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to the bank.”

* * *

Another month went by, four more weeks of physical therapy and dinners alone and sleepless nights. Good things happened too: his shoulder felt better by the day, and by the end of March he was back to hitting pads and sparring no-contact with Mark. Jackie was falling in love, and getting to watch it happen was incredibly cool even if it did make Alex’s chest ache. They were back to having Sunday night dinners, Leven making good use of her standing invitation. She said she was checking on Alex, but he knew she was really there to see Mark. 

Life was going on, and Alex didn’t want it to leave him behind.

He wanted to fight again. He knew it deep down, had always known it, but was finally admitting it to himself. His ego was too big to go out like that; he wasn’t going to disappear, just fade into obscurity on the heels of a loss like so many other fighters did. He refused to spend the rest of his life wondering if things would have been different.

He had told Jackie that he wanted another chance. She had been pestering him about it even more than usual until one day at the end of March, he finally sat her down. “What’s going on, Alex?” She put her phone down, a big deal for her since the thing was practically attached to her hand. Between work and Dayo, she was always emailing or texting or waiting for a phone call.

“I’m not done yet,” he said firmly, pacing in front of her. She watched him, her hair swinging over her shoulder as he moved. 

“With…” She rolled, indicating that he should go on.

“Fighting.” Duh, Jackie. 

Her sigh of relief was audible. “Thank God,” she said. “I was stressing the fuck out.”

“So what else is new?” She grabbed her phone, and he could see her opening a Google doc, already making a list of things to do. 

It only took a couple of days for Dana to call him, and he felt a shock go down his spine as the familiar name popped up on his phone. He wiped sweat off his forehead, pausing the treadmill and picking up the call, trying to ignore the sounds of the gym around him.

“This is Alex.”

“Alex!” Dana’s voice boomed over the phone. The man was loud, loud, loud, living his life at only one volume. “How are you doing? How is your shoulder?”

“Shoulder is good,” Alex said. He didn’t have the compulsion to constantly touch it anymore, wasn’t always rolling it out or trying to crack it. “Better than ever actually.”

“Good,” Dana said. “And how are you?”

Alex cleared his throat, not wanting to give anything away. “I’m good.” He paused, hesitating. He knew Jackie had already put the feelers out there or Dana wouldn’t be calling, but this was it; this was the moment that he could change his life for the better. “I’m ready to come back. I want a fight.”

Dana was never hard to read; he didn’t bury the lead, always let you know exactly what he was thinking. But now, for some reason, Alex was nervous, anticipating what he might say. “Well,” he said, and Alex’s heart beat faster and faster. “We’re ready to have you back.” He tried not to sign in relief, didn’t want Dana to hear that. “There was never any question about it. The only thing you have to decide is if you want the Nicholas fight.”

“Yes,” Alex said without hesitation. “Absolutely.”

Dominic had been insufferable since the fight. Alex had muted him on every single social media platform, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a block but unable to look at him running his mouth anywhere he could find someone who would listen. He was saying everything that Alex would expect him to say: that Alex was no match for him, that he was stronger and faster and younger, that he could have submitted him sooner but wanted to try out the fight. It was all bullshit. Alex knew it. Dominic knew it. Soon enough, the world would know it too.

“Okay,” Dana said, bringing Alex back to reality. He wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as last time. He wasn’t going to be cocky or overconfident. He wasn’t going to get in fights during press day. He was going to keep his head down, work harder than he had ever worked before, and kick Dominic’s ass in front of twenty thousand people, the same way he should have done the first time. “We’ll get everything set up with Jackie.” He paused. “It’s good to have you back, Alex.”

“Thank you. It’s good to be back.”

Alex hung up the phone once he heard Dana click off on his end, putting it down in front of him in the cupholder of the treadmill. He stood there for a few moments, thinking, before Mark came over and clapped him on the back. “Who was that?”

“Dana.”

Mark inhaled sharply. “Are you coming back?”

Alex looked down at him, nodding. “We’re back.”

Mark let out a whoop, yelling for Dayo who immediately pulled both of them and Nick into his office so they could come up with a training plan. They were back.

Only a week later, Alex found himself putting on a suit for the first time since fight week. He wanted to wear the same one he had worn for press day, the royal blue one that Gary made for him, but even looking at it reminded him of Isabelle. He left it hanging in the closet, went with dark gray instead.

His hands were shaking as he tried to button his shirt up, and Jackie chose that exact moment to burst into his room, of course. She stopped at the door, looking at him. He didn’t meet her eye in the reflection of the mirror, kept his head down, concentrating on those damn buttons. Did Armani make them smaller these days? 

Jackie didn’t say anything, just came over and knocked his hands out of the way, her fingers moving down the front of his shirt as she finished buttoning it for him. “Damn, Jackie,” he said. “I’m not paralyzed.”

She patted his chest, grabbing his jacket off the hanger, and he shrugged it on. “It’s gonna be good, Alex. Everything is going to be fine.”

He couldn’t explain why he was so nervous; he had spent the majority of his adult life in the spotlight, cameras trained on him and questions thrown at him. This should be no different, except for the fact that it was. Jackie slipped his tie over his head, her tongue poking out between her teeth as she tied it for him.

“Thank you,” he said, grabbing her arms once she was finished so he could look at her. “Seriously. Not just for this, but for everything. I know I haven’t made it easy on you.”

Ever since her meltdown in the kitchen, Jackie had gone back to her normal self: constantly stressed, but happier. Alex knew it made her feel infinitely better that they had a plan now; it didn’t matter what was going wrong as long as they had a clear direction in which to move.

“Don’t mention it, Alex,” she said, touching her hair to make sure it was still in its bun. Alex had seen her put it up before; there were sixty bobby pins in that thing and it was sure as shit not going anywhere. “Anything for you.”

Dayo, Mark, and Nick were already waiting in the kitchen, all of them dressed up too. “Don’t,” Alex warned Dayo before he could say anything to Jackie. “There are virgin ears in this room.”

Dayo scoffed at him. “Like who?”

“I don’t know.” Alex grabbed a cup from the mug rack next to the Keurig, pouring himself some coffee. “Nick?”

“Shut up.”

A few minutes later, after Alex had downed two cups of coffee and tried to force down a couple of hard-boiled eggs, they were in the Escalade on their way to the MGM Grand. He bounced his leg up and down, the movement getting faster and faster until Jackie slapped a palm down on his knee. “You’ve gotta stop; you’re making me have to go to the bathroom.”

They could see the crowd of people outside the hotel from down the street, spilling out onto the sidewalks and barely being pushed back by the police officers assigned to crowd control. “Jesus Christ,” Mark muttered under his breath.

Dayo pulled up into the roundabout outside the hotel, the porte cochere rising up over their heads. He handed the keys to the valet, and Mark pushed the door open, stepping out of the car in front of Alex.

He was blinded by the camera flashes, people yelling at him from every direction. For some reason, it almost made him feel calmer; he had done this part a million times. He heard a couple of questions that erred more on the rude side, but a lot of people were asking him how he was feeling, how his shoulder was doing, what his recovery had been like.

Jackie kept him moving, her hand firmly planted on his back as she steered him through the crowd, Dayo cutting a wide swath ahead of them through the people pushing towards them. They were through the front doors of the hotel in a few moments, the lobby huge around them, their voices echoing through it.

“Wow,” Nick said. “This is really it.”

True to his word, Dana’s people had called Jackie later that day, only a few hours after Alex had gotten off the phone with him, and they scheduled the fight for July twenty-seventh, figuring that would give Alex enough time to get back into fighting shape. Thankfully, he hadn’t put on a ton of weight and he been doing as much cardio as he could, so the cut wouldn’t be as brutal as it could have been. They only had fifteen weeks until the fight; their work was cut out for them as it was.

“They want a press conference,” Jackie told him hesitantly after she got off the phone with the UFC attorneys, like she thought he would nix the idea immediately. “Next week, you and Dominic.”

“Book it,” Alex said. “Whatever they want.”

Alex glanced around the lobby, expecting to see Dominic lurking somewhere, but there was no sign of him. That was just as well; Alex had promised he wouldn’t start shit this time, and he was going to keep that promise if it killed him. He was an adult, for fuck’s sake.

An event coordinator led them into a green room, giving them the five minute warning. Alex had done more press conferences than he could count, but most of them came after the fight. He would put on a suit and go up on stage, stitches or a black eye decorating his face as he talked about how great it had been, how much he had prepared, and how all of his work had paid off. He always had the belt with him, a security blanket that he hadn’t even considered until it was gone. 

Alex sat down on the couch, his knee bouncing up and down again, Jackie doing nothing to stop it. She just sank down next to him, lacing her fingers through his and squeezing tightly. There was a knock on the door, and Alex assumed it was one of the media people, there to tell them that it was time to go. Instead, Leven and Jack burst into the room.

“Hey, sweetie,” Leven said, coming over to him and pulling him up to hug him. “We just wanted to be here to support you.”

He didn’t know what to say, barely managed to get out a thank you. “That means a lot to me,” he finally said. He swallowed. “Is she…?”

Leven shook her head sadly. “Sorry. Just the two of us.”

“Well,” Alex said, shaking his head like that would get all the thoughts of Isabelle out of his brain. “Thank you. Seriously.”

It was only a couple more minutes before they came to get him, but it felt like hours, his heart beating faster and faster. He could hear Dominic’s team in the room next door, yelling and carrying on, trying to hype Dominic up, although for what Alex wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like they were going to fight out on that damn stage, not if Alex had anything to say about it. 

For the first time in his professional career, he was introduced first, since he was now officially the challenger. It was a weird feeling, and he didn’t like that he would have to sit there while Dominic made his way to the stage, so he decided that he would stand.

Joe Rogan was already there, shaking his hand as he took the few steps up to the platform, Dana waiting at the top. The room was packed, every chair filled, every eyeball and camera lens trained on him. It was deathly quiet except for the click of the cameras as he turned to face them, trying to keep his expression as serene and steady as possible. He didn’t so much as glance at Dominic as he came into the room, his entourage behind him, didn’t look over at the belt, just kept his gaze straight forward like nothing could phase him. He knew it would make Dominic even madder that he wasn’t acknowledging him. 

Once Dominic was seated, Alex sat down too, Dana in between them and Joe at the podium. They sped through all of the easy questions about Alex’s surgery and how he was doing. Alex knew they were trying to ease him into it, but the first hardball came quickly.

“What was your thought process after the fight?” Joe asked. “What was going through your head?”

Alex cleared his throat, leaning closer to the microphone and clasping his hands together in his lap. “It was tough,” he said. “It’s something I haven’t really gone through before.” He could hear Dominic let out a snort on Dana’s other side, and he ignored him. “You know, I went back to my mom’s in Iowa for a few days.” He brought it up just to head off Dominic; the kid had been saying that Alex had run, tail between his legs, back to his mommy’s. What a motherfucker. “Got some space, cleared my head.”

“Was there ever any doubt that you would come back?”

Yes. “No,” Alex said swiftly. “I’m a fighter. This is what I do. I just needed to get through the surgery and the physical therapy, and once we had a clearer timeline on how long that was all going to take, I knew I would be back as soon as they’d let me.”

“I want to talk about the fight itself for a second,” Joe said. “There was a big hit early in the second round.” Alex nodded. “We all thought it was a knockout.”

“Yeah, I did too.” Alex finally looked over at Dominic, catching his eye. The kid was clearly fuming, and Alex could only assume he was under strict instructions to not open his mouth until it was his turn. 

“Do you have any opinions about that?”

He had a lot. “No, not really.” Alex shrugged. “They’re going to ref the fight the way that they see fit, and if they didn’t think that was a knockout, then that’s the decision I am okay with.”

“Even though it means you lost?”

“I lost because of me,” Alex said. “I lost because I wasn’t able to finish the fight sooner.” He looked over at Dominic, raising his chin defiantly. “That’s not going to happen this time.”

Dominic sped through his answers, throwing out the same bullshit about how he was better than Alex and had finally gotten the chance to prove it. Alex tuned him out, looking out over the crowd. Seeing his team standing there off to the side made him feel infinitely better, reminded him that nothing coming out of Dominic’s mouth made any difference whatsoever. 

“Is there anything else you want to say, Alex?” Joe asked once they began to wrap up.

Alex looked all the cameras again, and he didn’t know what came over, but he knew exactly what he needed to say, just in case she was watching this. “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “I’m chasing my dream, and I hope you are too.”

Maybe now she would know that he thought about her every second of every day. Maybe now she would know that he wanted her back.


	15. pray to god i didn't waste all my good years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / cause now the whole damn world will know  
> / that we're too numb and just too dumb to change the story  
> / neither one, one of us wants to say we're sorry  
> / i'd rather be anywhere, anywhere but here  
> / i'd rather be anywhere, anywhere but here  
> / i close my eyes and see a crowd of a thousand tears  
> / i pray to god i didn't waste all my good years  
> good years by zayn

He waited a week. He didn’t hear from Isabelle.

He couldn’t say that he was surprised in the slightest; even when he was making his last ditch appeal on national television, he knew it couldn’t take back the words that he had already said. But even so, he had hoped.

His phone stayed radio silent, as least as far as Isabelle was concerned. It got to the point where Alex was keeping it face down all the time and on silent so that he wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up and look at it every seven seconds. Eventually, he started leaving it behind, plugged in next to his bed when he went to the gym or the chiropractor or out to eat. This made Jackie crazy.

“What if I need to get ahold of you?”

“You have the numbers of every person I might possibly be with,” Alex grunted, trying to keep the weight bar from falling on his chest. Jackie had been breaking her never come to the gym rule ever since Alex had announced his comeback. He didn’t know if she was just keeping an eye on him or if it was because the gym was where Dayo spent sixteen hours a day, but regardless there she was every morning, coffee cup in hand and notebook tucked under her arm. “It’s not like I’m going to go missing again.”

“Yeah, because if you did I would kill you myself,” Jackie said, taking a sip of her coffee and scanning the gym. Dayo was in his office with the door closed, and Alex could assume that he was mapping out fight camp. 

“Just go in there, Jackie.” Alex rolled his eyes at her, exhaling sharply as he pushed the bar up. Mark, standing behind him to spot, snickered, and Jackie shot them both her patented death ray stare. “Fine, whatever.” He let the bar crash down onto the stand, knowing that would bring Dayo running.

Sure enough, his door popped open a few seconds later. “Ludwig!”

Alex sat up, ducking underneath the bar and grinning innocently at Dayo. “Yes?”

“What have I told you about dropping weights?”

“Not to do it.”

“And so you’re doing it because…”

“I’m difficult?”

“Correct. You know, I thought that for this one fight, maybe just maybe you wouldn’t be a giant pain in my ass.”

“Sorry, boss,” Alex called back, but he knew that by now Dayo had already seen Jackie and had no interest in anything that Alex had to say, which was perfectly fine with him. He just wanted to work out in peace, and distracting Dayo and Jackie with each other only made that easier. 

“C’mon,” Mark said, tapping his shoulder, which was feeling better than ever. “Two more sets.” Alex had just wrapped his hands around the bar, ready to push it up, when Mark’s phone started ringing. Mark hesitated, leaving it in the pocket of his sweatpants, and Alex groaned. “Just answer it. I know it’s Leven. I’m not gonna fall apart into a puddle of despair if you talk to your girlfriend for two fucking seconds.”

Mark didn’t say anything, just shot him a grin and bounded away. Alex could hear him say “what’s up, baby?” as he retreated. Thankfully, Nick was right there to take his place, sliding in behind Alex and steadying the bar. 

“When did we turn into the only single ones of the group?”

“Beats me,” Alex said, bringing it down to his chest and holding it there for a few seconds before pushing it back up, the burn working its way up down his arms and into his chest. “It’s pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah, super great.” Nick rolled his eyes. “I love being alone.”

“Tell me about it.”

It had been a week since the press conference, and Alex had been bombarded with texts and calls and emails from his family, friends, old training partners, and everyone else he had ever spoken to at least once in his life. If he didn’t assume every single sound coming from his phone was Isabelle trying to get ahold of him, it would have been really encouraging. And it still was, even with the reminder that he was really on his own for this one. There were still a whole hell of a lot of people behind him. 

“Do you know how worried I was?” Natalie hissed at him one day in the middle of April, just a few days after the press conference. They were on FaceTime, and he could see the stacks of Dartmouth’s library spread out behind her. He needed that girl to over-achieve a little less; finals weren’t for another few weeks and he had to assume senioritis had set in for most normal people. 

“No,” Alex said stubbornly, and she shushed him like he was the one sitting in a university library. “Cause you didn’t call me.”

“I called you numerous times, Alex. You just refused to answer my calls.”

She wasn’t lying. Of all of his family members, Natalie was really the only one who knew that something was going on between him and Isabelle, and he didn’t have the strength, then or now, to discuss it with her. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“As you should be.” She stuck her tongue out at him, glancing around her to make sure no one was paying attention to her. “Well, you know I’ll be there for the fight in July.”

“Natalie, no. You’ll have just started your new job, and I don’t want you to stress out about this too.”

“Shut the fuck up, Alex.”

“Nat, you’re in a library.”

“It’s not a children’s library, so we’re fine.”

By the time Alex hung up the phone with her, he felt better. He missed his sister like crazy. He had tried as hard as he possibly could to get her to move to Vegas after graduation, but of course she was going to New York City to do something with fashion - he should really pay more attention when she talked about it, but he knew the gist of it, and that was probably enough. She could go on about it for days. 

The next month flew by, and May came and went. Alex turned twenty-eight, and he tried not to think about the fact that he was another year older and still entirely on his own.

Jackie tried to make his birthday as high-key as possible, going against Alex’s express wishes for her to chill or be chill. He had told her a hundred times not to make a big deal out of it, but she didn’t listen to him, of course. He had gotten home from training on May seventh, assuming that someone was going to jump out at him from behind a door and scare the bejesus out of him, but the apartment was quiet and dark, and he hoped against hope for a few minutes that maybe Jackie had forgotten completely.

Those hopes were dashed when he walked into his room and saw the brand new suit sitting on his bed, which was entirely unfair on Jackie’s part because she knew that Gary Franzen’s suits were his weakness, even if he refused to admit that fact. It was light gray, a color he didn’t normally wear, but he knew that it was Jackie’s favorite on him, and the inside silk was mint green. He reached out to touch it, Jackie’s voice scaring the crap out of him.

“Hey!”

He jumped, his gym bag falling to the floor. “Goddammit, Jackie. Enter the room like a normal person. I’m getting too old for this.”

“I know.” She grinned at him from the doorway. “Twenty-eight.”

“Don’t even laugh at that, Emerson. You’re not that far behind me.”

“We’re leaving for dinner at seven.” She threw the words back over her shoulder at him as she walked away, refusing to give him a chance to ask where they were going or what they were doing or what the hell she had planned. 

“Jackie. Jackie. Jackie!” 

She did not answer him, and he slammed the door to his bathroom as loud as he possibly could. He got in the shower, could hear his phone buzzing on the bathroom counter, and he forced himself not to jump out and grab it. Texts and phone calls had been coming in all day, and even though he knew that none of them were coming from Isabelle, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering, every single time his phone made a noise, if it was her.

He hadn’t said anything to her on her birthday back in February, so he didn’t know what he was expecting. 

Despite the fact that she wasn’t here, despite the fact that he was barrelling into fight camp with a loss looming over his head, and despite the fact that he felt like his life was falling apart faster than he could put it back together, it was one of the best birthdays he could remember having. That was all thanks to Jackie. 

She had rented out Skybar at the Waldorf Astoria, filled it with love and light and laughter and all of Alex’s favorite people. His whole team was there, along with fighters from the gym and some of his old training partners. The place was packed, so many people running around that Alex almost forgot who was missing, which was exactly the vibe he was sure Jackie was going for. And it was to her credit that he did, for a few hours, manage to forget. Maybe heartache has a way of disappearing right in front of you, if you just let it. 

Miesha was there with her new boyfriend, talking to Cody and Urijah in the corner. Leven was holding court front and center, most of Alex’s fighters clustered around her and gazing up at her. Mark was off to the side, scowl on his face, arms crossed, most likely coming up with some sort of grueling workout that he could punish them all with later. Jack was talking to Jackie, Nick and Dayo snickering over something by the bar. 

He had been shocked when Jackie had led him off the elevator, gripping his arm tightly and looking up at him expectantly. “Holy shit, Jaq,” he said as everyone shouted surprise, their phone cameras out and drinks already in hand. “You did all this for me?”

“Of course.” He couldn’t believe how many people had turned up for him, just to celebrate his birthday. In those dark days just after the loss, he never could have dreamed this up.

Now he sat at a table in front of one of the big floor to ceiling windows, nursing a drink. Miesha came over, sitting down on his lap and putting an arm around his neck. “How are you doing?”

She shifted, and he hooked his arm around her waist, holding her in place. “I’m good.”

“Good good? Or shitty good?”

He contemplated her question, not really knowing what the answer was. “If I had to pick one, I would say good good.” Just having her there in front of him was bringing back every memory of Isabelle that he had pushed into the far recesses of her brain, and if he closed his eyes for even a second, he would think of all the times he had sat with her like this. “I just want to fight again. I want to have that back.”

“You’re going to kick his ass. You know that.”

“I got too cocky last time. I can’t do that again.”

“It’s not being cocky. It’s being confident. It’s about knowing who you are and what you’re good at and fighting is absolutely what you are good at.” She kissed his cheek, hopping up and pushing his drink towards him. “But for now, just enjoy this.”

Jack caught Alex’s eye as Miesha walked away, his eyes lingering on her for just a little bit too long before he came down, plopping himself down into the chair across from Alex’s. Things had been awkward with him at first; Leven had come around quickly enough, but Isabelle was like Jack’s little sister, and he wasn’t going to let Alex off the hook that easily.

He had made Alex run through the whole sordid situation a few times, asking questions and glaring at him as he did so, until Alex was finally able to convince him that he knew he was wrong and he would take it back if he could. Leven and Jack had sworn, under pain of death, not to breathe a word of Alex’s feelings to Isabelle, not that they could if they had wanted to, since apparently she still wasn’t letting any of them talk about what had gone down. That’s all Alex knew about her life at this point, and he certainly wasn’t asking any questions of her best friends, for fear that he might not like their answers.

“I have something for you,” Jack said, reaching into the pocket of his suit coat and pulling out an envelope. “A birthday present.”

“Jack, you didn’t have to get me anything,” Alex said, reaching out for it. It wasn’t flat, not a piece of paper, and he looked inside to see a flash drive. 

Jack shifted uncomfortably. “It’s actually… not from me. It’s from Isabelle.” Alex jerked his head up, his breath catching in his throat, and Jack continued quickly. “Not like that. She doesn’t know I’m giving this to you. But I think you should have it.”

“What is it?” Alex dropped the envelope onto the table like it might burn him. 

“Just take it.” Jack pushed it towards him. “Please.”

Alex tried to keep his hands from shaking as he picked up the envelope again, tucking it into the inside pocket of his jacket. The tiny flash drive felt like a hundred pounds sitting on his chest, reminding him it was there every time he moved. So he did what he did best and got drunk to forget.

He woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, immediately checked the other side of the bed to make sure he hadn’t done anything really dumb. Thankfully, it was empty, save for his dog. 

The night came back to him in flashes - he remembered Jackie gathering everyone together to take a picture, all of them crowded in front of the giant windows, the sky dark behind them; he remembered Dayo toasting to him, slopping champagne down the front of his jacket; he remembered Leven taking Snapchat videos, her lips pressed against his cheek, hair falling over one eye, saving them to her phone before sending them off into the universe. He grabbed his phone, sending a silent prayer of thanks to Drunk Alex who had actually managed to remembered to plug it in to charge before passing out, and he opened Instagram, a flood of notifications popping up to greet him.

He scrolled through the likes and happy birthday comments, doing what he always did and scanning for Isabelle’s name. It wasn’t there, but her sister’s sure was.

Alex practically threw his phone across the room when he saw “@madelinefuhrman liked your photo,” barely managing to hang onto it. He had only spoken to Madeline a few times, once when he called her to figure out her schedule and a couple of times when Isabelle was FaceTiming her as Alex walked into the kitchen. She had seemed nice and bubbly and outgoing, just like Isabelle, but that had been before.

He pulled up the picture, squinting at it. It was one of the ones Jackie had insisted on taking, everyone pushed together, red cheeks and stars in their eyes. Alex had one arm around Jackie’s shoulder, Leven practically in a headlock under the other, and they were both hanging onto him for dear life, laughing. All of his friends were spread out around them, raising their glasses or making faces or, in Jack’s case, mid-jump. Alex looked happy, and if you didn’t know any better, you would assume he actually was. 

He had no idea where Isabelle was at this point, whether she was still with Madeline in France or in Atlanta with her family or even right there in Las Vegas, back at her job and her apartment and her real life. He had no idea if she looked at his social media as much as he looked at hers, trying to figure out where the hell she was and what she was doing. He had no idea if she had seen this picture, which he had captioned “beautiful night, beautiful people.” He had no idea if she knew that his life wasn’t anywhere near as beautiful without her in it.

Alex locked his phone, not bothering to check his Snapchat or Twitter. There was only so much he could take in one morning.

He padded downstairs into the kitchen, which was thankfully and inexplicably quiet. Jackie didn’t party much, but when she did, she really went for it and she had really gone for it last night. He vaguely remembered trying to separate her and Dayo in the limo on the way back to the apartment, screaming at them to stop. She was nowhere to be seen, her door firmly shut, and there was no way Alex was ever going to barge in there again.

The first thing he saw when he got into the kitchen was his jacket slung over a chair, and he immediately remembered what was inside of it. He was going to need an entire vat of coffee before he dealt with that.

In fact, he ended up just not dealing with it. He put the flash drive in the safe in his office and promptly tried to forget that it existed. Sometimes, he was actually able to, but most of the time it was the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing that ran through his mind before he fell asleep, and it weighed heavy on his mind every moment in between when he was on the treadmill or swimming laps or sparring at the gym. 

The only respite from his busy training schedule was his trip to New Hampshire at the end of May to see Natalie graduate from Dartmouth. He flew out there with Nick, meeting his mom and Sophia in Hanover. His mom held onto him so tight that he thought she might re-break a couple of his ribs, pulling back to look at him carefully.

“Mom,” he said, well aware that everyone in the hotel lobby was staring at them. “You gotta chill.”

“No, I do not,” she said sternly. “I’m your mother, and I’m allowed to be worried about you.”

“Mom,” he hissed. “There is nothing to be worried about.” He turned to Nick. “Tell her.”

Nick sighed. “Come on, Ma.” He herded her towards the elevator, Sophia and Alex trailing behind. Once they were up in the room, his mom turned on them.

“Tell me the truth.” She directed the statement towards Nick, knowing that Alex was incapable of self-reflection or being honest about his feelings. “How is everything going?”

Nick dropped the armload of bags he was carrying onto the floor in the living room of their suite. “It’s better, Mom. I swear.”

“We swear,” Alex chimed in, immediately shutting up as she shot him a glare. 

Nick collapsed onto one of the couches, pulling Sophia down beside him. Alex hadn’t seen his mom since he had left her house in January, but he had tried to be better at communicating and he honestly didn’t feel like he had done that poorly of a job. But he knew she wasn’t going to take anything he said at face value. 

Eventually, the two of them managed to convince her, with Sophia’s help, that Alex was not only okay, but good, that he wasn’t pushing himself too hard, that he was going to be ready for the fight and it wasn’t going to be a repeat of last time. He knew his mom could not give two shits whether he won or lost, that she just wanted him to be happy, and that was both encouraging and terrifying.

They got to watch Natalie graduate, screaming her name as she walked across the stage and took her diploma. They were easily the loudest people at that graduate, all of them ignoring the stares of the people around them. Alex got asked for his autograph or a picture a couple of times, and people were shockingly kind to him. He hadn’t been out in public much at all this year, and he wasn’t used to people asking how he was feeling or telling him that they were rooting for a comeback. 

By the time he got back home, he felt refreshed, and honestly, he had forgotten all about that flash drive altogether. 

* * *

Jackie whipped around so fast when Alex walked into the kitchen on June first that he thought she might spin right out of her chair and onto the floor. She barely caught herself, dropping her phone in the process. “Jesus, Jaq,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as best he could. It was five in the morning, and he was nowhere near awake, but he was trying to get his body to re-adjust to waking up hellishly early. Those months he had taken off at the beginning of the year had not been kind to him. 

“Oh, hey,” she said. Her voice was high and weird, and Alex knew immediately that she was up to something. He reached down as he passed her, grabbing her phone off the floor to hand back to her, but before he could extend it out to her, she had tried to snatch it back from him. She was fast, but he was faster, and he caught the world’s quickest glimpse of Isabelle on FaceTime before Jackie hauled off and punched him in the arm, grabbing her phone.

“Let me call you back,” Jackie muttered, ending the call and pretending like Alex wasn’t having a heart attack. 

He didn’t say anything, and she took a hundred years to look up at him. When she did, he just raised one eyebrow, sure that she could see his heart coming through his chest. “What?” she snapped.

“Nothing.”

“She’s still my best friend besides you, Alex. I can talk to her.”

“Jackie, I’m not saying anything.”

“I miss her too, you know.”

“I know.”

“You can’t make me feel bad about it.”

“Who’s making you feel bad?”

Finally, she stopped for a second and listened to what he was saying, realized he wasn’t yelling at her like she had clearly been expecting. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Alex took a deep breath, flattening his hands against the counter to steady himself. He felt like he had just been hit with a knock-out punch, the sight of Isabelle’s face on that screen, even if it was just for a second, completely taking his breath away. “You have got to chill.”

She made a face at him, taking a sip of her coffee. “I know.”

He quickly had a fight with himself, trying to decide whether to ask about her or not. His curiosity won out over his desire to appear indifferent. Six months had gone by, but that didn’t mean it had gotten any easier, not in the slightest. “How is she?”

“Good.” Jackie looked away from him, suddenly very interested in the contents of her mug. “She’s good.”

Alex waited for her to say more, but she was just as stubborn as he was. “Okay.” He turned his back to her, grabbing a coffee mug from the cabinet and pouring himself a cup, resisting the urge to stir in cream and sugar. He could feel her eyes burning a hole in his back, and he turned around, setting his cup down on the counter, coffee sloshing over the edge and onto the marble.

That night, Alex finally went into his office, closing the door behind him. He contemplated locking it, but he knew Jackie would never look for him in here. The shelves were empty, dusty again. He had barely come in here since Isabelle had left, not wanting to look at all of the shelves she had cleaned out. He hesitated with his hand on the latch of the safe, waiting a few moments before typing in the combination and pulling the door open once the lock clicked back.

The flash drive was sitting right there where he left it, on top of his passport and UFC contract and some stacks of hundreds wrapped together in their paper jackets. He reached in, grabbing it and turning it between his fingers.

When he sat down at his desk to boot up his computer, his heart was beating as fast as it did right before he was going to fight, like he was right this instant heading into the arena, hearing everyone’s screams. His computer took an infuriatingly long time to start, and he had to type his password in three times before he got it right, his background blinking to life. It was a picture of him and Isabelle from Thanksgiving, and he couldn’t get himself to change it.

He shoved the flash drive into the side of the computer, waiting impatiently for the computer to recognize it. Finally, a folder popped up with one file in it, a Microsoft Word document, and he clicked on it. 

Isabelle’s words filled the screen, popping up in black and white in front of him. He saw his name and Dayo’s and Jackie’s, and he had to stop himself from skipping to the end of the document to see where she had left off. He knew immediately what this was, that it was the story she had been working on for the few weeks that she had been here. It’s what she was constantly scribbling notes about, typing away late at night on the couch or early in the morning at the counter. She had never let him read any of it, slapping his hand away when he tried to look. 

“You can see it when it’s done,” she told him. “When it’s perfect.”

“Just tell me what it’s about,” he had whined one morning when they were up at the pool. She had her legs dangling in the water, notebook spread out on her lap, her arm curled around it to keep him from splashing water onto the pages. 

She kicked her foot out at him, splashing him in the face, and he grabbed her ankle. It was only a couple of weeks after she moved in, and every time he touched her, it felt like he got an electric shock up his spine. “It’s about you,” she said. 

“About me?” He blinked water out of his eyes. “Really?”

“Yes.” She shut the notebook, pushing it behind her and leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees. 

Now the words stared up at him, and he scrolled back to the top of the first page. “He’s a badass with a good heart,” Alex read. “Soft, strong, unapologetic, honest. He’s the type of person you want beside you, not against.” His breath caught in his throat, and he kept reading as fast as his brain would allow. It wasn’t finished; that much was clear. She jumped around, leaving sentences incomplete and thoughts unfinished.

“Sometimes he looks at me like I created the Pop-Tart, and I don’t know how to tell him that I feel the same way.”

“He makes the world so much brighter when he’s there next to me, and I have to be careful because it could get a whole lot darker if he leaves.” 

“I’m in love with the way he says my name.”

“He was born to make history.”

She wrote about meeting him for the first time. “Rich boys don’t have feelings. Everyone knows that. I went into it thinking that he was just going to be some golden boy, even though Jackie warned me that wasn’t at all the case. And she was right, of course, just like she always is. This boy has more feelings than anyone I’ve ever met, even if he has no idea how to express them.”

She wrote about going out to dinner with him, about the paparazzi and the fans and the cameras. “This is his normal life, and he doesn’t think anything of it. I guess you wouldn’t, if you had been steeped in it for so long. He moves so easily, even with dozens or hundreds or thousands of eyes on him. He’s graceful in a way that I don’t think I could ever be.” 

She wrote about Kat and the club and the kiss, and Alex found himself smiling in spite of himself. “The girl is crazy. I haven’t officially met her or anything, but I don’t need to in order to make that determination. Jack, in his infinite wisdom, managed to find her at the club last night and bring her up to our suite. And I would be lying if I said that kissing Alex was just a distraction because it wasn’t.” Alex leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand. “I wanted to do it, and I had since the second I saw him. So I don’t know why I stopped him when we got home. Madeline would say I self-sabotage, and Madeline would be right.”

Alex had spent so much time around Isabelle wondering what she was thinking, what was going on in her head. She was not easy to read, no matter how long he spent trying to figure it out, and now here it was, right in front of him, laid out for him to see. Everything she had ever thought about him, everything she had ever felt, except for the one thing Alex thought was the most important. She never wrote that she loved him, not in so many words, and even here with her damn journal spread out in front of him, he was wondering how she felt. 

The end came before he was ready, the last line by itself on the page. “It’s been a beautiful fight. It still is.” He wondered when she had written it, whether it had been before the fight or after, whether he had sent her away yet. He swallowed, biting his tongue before hitting print.

It’s been a beautiful fight.

It still is.


	16. what's gonna be left of the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / what's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it  
> / what's gonna be left of the world  
> / every minute and every hour  
> / i miss you, i miss you, i miss you more  
> good grief by bastille

“Come on, Alex. We haven’t been out in ages.”

“We just went out for my birthday.”

“What the hell are you talking about? That was two months ago.”

Alex pressed a couple of buttons on the treadmill, speeding it up, and considered what Mark was saying. How was it possible that it was already the beginning of July and he was only a few weeks away from the fight? “We can’t go anywhere,” he said, mustering as patient a sigh as possible. “Fight camp starts in two days.”

“Exactly.” Mark moved around to the front of the treadmill, forcing Alex to make eye contact with him. “This will be the last hurrah. Plus it’s Cody’s birthday.”

Cody Garbrandt was turning thirty, which was a big deal, but Cody Garbrandt wasn’t set to fight in three weeks. Alex loved to go out, or at least he used to before his life fell apart and he started getting old, but he sure as hell didn’t go out during fight camp.

Nick joined Mark, looking up at Alex. “Please? Please, please, please, please-”

“Oh my God,” Alex said, hitting the stop button and waiting for the treadmill to slow to a halt, grabbing the towel off of the hand bar and wiping his face. “Fine. If it’ll get you to shut up. But I’m not drinking.”

“Sure,” Nick said, rolling his eyes in Mark’s direction. “Fine, fine,” he said quickly once he saw Alex glaring at him. “You won’t drink.”

That was how Alex found himself at The Bank on the Friday night before he was supposed to start fight camp. He had pouted about it for the rest of his training session before he got home and Jackie told him to suck it up. 

“You can have one night off,” she told him. He pushed himself up onto her bathroom counter, knocking aside makeup and face wash and hairspray, pulling his legs up so that he could sit there while she straightened her hair. “It’s not going to hurt.”

“It might,” he said, and she threw an eyebrow pencil at him, missing him completely and hitting the mirror.

“It won’t. You’ve been really good lately.”

Getting back to a full time training schedule after a few weeks off was tough on all of them. Alex hadn’t had a few weeks off in years, since he had started fighting professionally. He had been an athlete for so long that he didn’t really know how not to be one. In the few weeks that he wasn’t allowed to train, he put on weight and lost a lot of muscle, and his cardio turned into complete crap. Needless to say, Dayo had his work cut out for him.

Over the last few months, Alex could confidently say that he worked harder than he ever had in his life. He was up every morning at five o’clock, hitting the treadmill or the pool or the weights. He did cardio twice a day, powerlifted every afternoon, and ate completely clean, something he didn’t normally do unless he was in camp. Come the beginning of July, he would say that he was back to where he was before the New Year’s Eve fight, if not even better.

Jackie reminded him of all of that now, holding the straightener dangerously close to her ear as she looked up at him. “I’m not going to argue with you about this anymore,” she said, releasing the swatch of hair she had clamped in the straightener, a curl of steam rising towards the ceiling. “You’re going out, and you’re not going to bitch about it.”

He groaned, leaning his head back against the mirror with a thump, but if anyone deserved a night out it was Jackie, and who was he to take that away from her? “Go get ready,” she said, swinging the straightener too close to his knee for comfort, and he skittered out of her bathroom.

The Bank was packed, Alex recognizing a lot of the faces that swirled around him. He’d had a couple of beers at the house at Mark’s insistence, but he hadn’t drank in weeks and his brain already felt a little mushy. It was so dark he could barely see, the black and gold of the club rising up around them, VIP booths ringing the glass-encased dance floor beneath, looking down at the pulsing lights and crowds of people. The chandeliers shimmered above them, scattering light on them as Cody pushed his way towards them.

“You came!” He leaned in to hug Alex, patting him once on the back before turning to Jackie. “I can’t believe you got him out of the house.”

“Tell me about it,” Jackie said, and even in the darkness of the club, he could see her roll her eyes. Jackie had always said that she would never in a billion years date a fighter, which was a rule that she was clearly in violation of now, but he had always secretly hoped she would end up with Cody. He was the complete opposite of Jackie, tattoos scattered up his arms and neck, but Alex had always thought he would be good for her. And now Jackie was with Dayo, and Cody was married, and Alex was still, as always, alone.

Cody moved through the group, saying his hellos to Dayo and Mark and Nick. Alex had invited Leven and Jack too, figuring the more the merrier, and they were supposed to be meeting the group there. He scanned the club for Leven’s bright blonde hair, but he didn’t see her yet. 

“Come on,” Jackie said, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward. “We need a drink.”

Everyone who saw Alex wanted to buy him a drink, and there were only so many Vegas Bombs and Blue Motherfuckers and shots of Fireball that he could stomach, so he started passing them on to Jackie and the boys. Even so, he had more than his fair share, and he was mixing alcohol in a way that was not going to end well.

By the time it happened, Alex was more than drunk, quickly on his way to throwing up and blacking out. They were sequestered up in one of the VIP booths, looking down at everyone (“Just the way it should be,” according to Leven, who had finally shown up). Alex wasn’t the only one unsteady on his feet; they had all had too much to drink, even Jackie, and she was sprawled across Dayo’s lap, looking up at him in a way that made Alex want to hurl even more than he already did. Thank God Nick was here or this would really be a third wheel situation. 

Alex leaned his head against the back of the banquette, throwing bleu cheese stuffed olives at Leven and Mark, who were making out on the sofa across from him. They were completely oblivious, but that wasn’t going to ruin his fun. Jackie wasn’t even trying to stop him, the way she normally did when he initiated a food fight. Jack kept trying to track down shot girls, but he was also too drunk to really make an impression on any of them, waving his hand lazily in their direction every time one of them passed. 

Every time he closed his eyes, the room started to swim, and he knew that he was going to spend at least part of the night with his head in a toilet, which really brought him back a few years to his amateur fighting days. He hadn’t gone to college, but he sure as hell had made up for it back then. He had stopped taking shots three rounds ago, pushing them away to Jack or Nick or Dayo, all of whom were holding their alcohol a lot better than he was.

“How many?” he heard Jack ask the group, but he didn’t open his eyes, assuming they had finally managed to flag down a shot girl. “Alex? You want one?”

Alex grunted, shaking his head. “Okay,” Jack said. “We’ll take six.”

He felt Jack lean over him, grabbing shots and passing them back to Nick. Alex sat up, opening his eyes, feeling for a few moments like he might genuinely throw up. He was concentrating so hard on keeping that from happening that he didn’t realize who was standing in front of them until she said his name.

He jerked his head up, which was a bad idea on all counts. “Kat?”

Sure enough, she was right there, almost empty tray in one hand, the other planted on her hip, and she did not look happy. “You remember.”

“I… uh…” Alex shot a wild look at Jackie. The girl drank twice a year, and of course it would be right now when he really needed her to step in. His brain was so soaked in cinnamon fucking whiskey that he could barely form words. “How’s… it going?”

She passed the last shot on her tray to Jack, narrowing her eyes at Alex as she leaned across him, dark hair brushing his shoulder. She really was pretty; it wasn’t hard to remember why he had been so attracted to her in the first place. He glanced at Jackie again, unsure of how to clue her into the situation without being really obvious about it. This is why he should never be left on his own.

“It’s going,” she said shortly, and it seemed like she did not want to have a conversation with him, which was all too well, but she wasn’t walking away. 

“Can you, ah… just put those on my tab?” he asked lamely, and she nodded curtly, still unmoving. “Okay.” He didn’t know what else to say, and it was turning into a real horror movie situation. “So…”

She stared at him for a few more seconds before she turned on her heel, stomping away. Leven, with her impeccable timing, took this moment to finally break away from Mark. “Who was that?” She nonchalantly wiped smeared lipstick off the side of her mouth, and Alex had to stop himself from lunging at her.

“That was Kat,” he hissed at her. 

“Wait, what?” she shrieked, and Alex could only hope that Kat was out of earshot. 

“Yeah, thanks for all your help, Lev!”

“Well, why didn’t you say something?”

“She was standing here staring at me. What could I have said? Oh, Leven, look, it’s the girl who stalked me and lied about being pregnant. Watch me get my ass beat.” 

Jackie finally joined in. “Who’s beating your ass?”

“Kat.”

Jackie made a face. “Don’t bring her up. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good night.”

“It was already ruined! She was just here!”

The situation quickly devolved into the three of them yelling at each other, Jackie refusing to believe that Kat had just been there, Leven refusing to acknowledge that if she hadn’t been trying to swallow Mark’s tongue then maybe she would have been available to help, and Alex still too shocked and far too drunk to say anything coherent. 

“Oh my God, enough!” Dayo said finally, smacking Alex in the arm with a cocktail stirrer. “Don’t even look at me like that,” he continued when Alex glared at him. 

“You’re not my real dad,” Alex muttered petulantly, only half joking. 

“Well, she’s gone now,” Jackie said. “So we can just drop it.”

“Fine.” He was far too tired and far too drunk to fight with her about it. “Let’s drop it.”

And that would have been the end of it, if Alex hadn’t had to go to the bathroom by himself like a moron. The night was winding down, people starting to leave, and he knew that if he didn’t hit the restroom before they started trying to get a car, he would not make it back to the apartment. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to Jackie, standing up unsteadily. “I’m serious.” She had a nasty habit of disappearing at the end of the night in her insistence to get back home as quickly as possible. 

“I won’t,” she said, too busy looking at Dayo to pay him any attention. When had this become his life? He huffed out a sigh, making his way out of the VIP area and down the stairs towards the bathroom. It took longer than he expected, people coming up to him to clap him on the back or tell him good luck, and by the time he actually got to the back hallway, he thought he might actually just pee in his pants.

It was a universal truth that you never really knew how drunk you were until you were alone in the bathroom, and he had to steady himself with a forearm on the wall in front of him to keep from pitching forward. Good job, Alex, he thought. What a high point for you. The bathroom was blessedly empty, no one there to see him like this.

He pushed through the bathroom door, stopping in the dark hallway as his head started to spin, and he backed up against the wall, resting against it. Jackie could wait for a few more minutes; he was sure she would be fine with that if the other option was him throwing up all over her in the car. He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself, the world spinning around him.

“Hey.” A voice startled him, and he jerked sideways, hitting his elbow on the wall, a streak of pain shooting through his funny bone.

“Ow, fuck.” He flinched, rubbing his elbow. Kat’s face swam into focus in front of him. She had ditched the tray, and she was holding a bottle of water out to him.

“Drink this.”

Alex hesitated, his fingers brushing over hers as he took it from her. “Thanks,” he said, unscrewing the cap and taking a long drink, suddenly realizing he’d had absolutely no water all night. He tried not to stare at her as he drank, but he was too drunk and the situation was too weird. She looked so much like Isabelle that it was tripping him out a little bit: tiny, dark hair, a dusting of freckles across her nose. Glitter speckled her collarbone and tan skin peeked out of the gap between the bottom of her tank top and the top of her skirt. He gripped the water bottle tighter so that he wasn’t tempted to reach out and touch her. 

“You good?” she asked, tilting her head.

He nodded, swallowing the last of the water. “Yeah. Just… drunk. You know.”

She smirked. “I do know.” She looked around, the music pulsing through the wall behind them. “Listen. I’m sorry about… everything. The shit I did. I don’t…” She cleared her throat. “I know that doesn’t make it better. But I am.”

He nodded again, like this was a totally normal situation. “It’s cool,” he said thickly. If things had gone differently, if he hadn’t met Isabelle, he would still be furious about it. But even in his alcohol-soaked brain, he realized that none of it mattered. And honestly, if Kat hadn’t done what she had done, he wouldn’t have gotten those eight blissful weeks with Isabelle in the first place. Not that he was going to tell her that. “It’s past us.”

“Okay,” she said, scratching the back of her calf with one foot. 

“I, uh…” Alex didn’t know how to walk away without being rude, but if he didn’t lay down soon he was going to fall right over. “I had better get back upstairs.”

“I’ll walk you,” she said, reaching out to steady him, and he hadn’t realized until then that he was swaying back and forth. “Come on.”

She kept her hand on his elbow, guiding him through the crowd and pushing him up the stairs. He was thankful to have her there, not sure if he could have made it on his own. 

He was even more thankful when they got back up to the VIP booth to find it empty. “Um…” Kat turned around, her hand still on his elbow, hair brushing his arm. The smell of green apples floated up towards him, reminding him so much of Isabelle he couldn’t breathe for a moment. “Where are your friends?”

Alex sank down onto the couch, his legs finally giving out. “Goddammit, Jackie,” he muttered, fumbling in his pocket for his phone. He felt like he was moving underwater, like his arms and legs were too heavy. “She always does this.” He finally got his phone out, managing to unlock it before giving up completely. 

“Here.” Kat took it from him, sitting down next to him and opening up his contacts, pressing Jackie’s name. She handed Alex the phone as it started ringing, and it rang and rang and rang until it finally went to voicemail. 

“Fuck,” Alex muttered, letting the phone drop onto his lap. “Can I just sleep here? I’m so tired.” He dropped his head back, closing his eyes.

He probably would have ended up falling asleep there if it hadn’t been for Kat. “Come on,” she said, grabbing his arm and hoisting him up. He stumbled, putting his arm around her to stay upright. “I’ll get you a car.”

Alex felt like everyone in the place was looking at him as they made their way slowly down the stairs and out towards the front of the club. And he didn’t care. He just wanted to get home to his bed and his dog and get this whole night in his rearview mirror. He didn’t even think anything of the paparazzi milling outside the club, waiting for the fighters to come out. Kat pushed her way through them over to the valet stand, where a bunch of red-coated guys were waiting.

She spoke to them for a couple of seconds, gesturing back towards Alex, who had leaned himself up against the wall so that he wouldn’t fall over. One of the valets stepped forward, saying something into a walkie-talkie, and a black-on-black Escalade pulled up to the curb. Kat came back over to him, grabbing his arm again and walking him towards the car.

He opened the door clumsily, stopping and turning back to look at her. “Why are you doing this?”

“I owed you one,” she said simply. “At least one.” There was an awkward silence, Alex not knowing if he should agree with her or not. “Just go,” she said, a smile playing over her face, the first he had seen from her all night. She really was pretty. He swallowed. “Get home safe, Alex.”

He tumbled into the car, the door slamming shut behind him and darkness swirling behind his eyes.

* * *

His first thought was that Jackie was going to be furious. His second was that Jackie had no room to talk because she was the only reason that he had been left at The Bank by himself. His third was that he was going to throw up.

Alex dropped his phone onto the bed next to him, swinging his legs over the side and carefully sitting up. It wasn’t careful enough, and he had to make a mad dash to the bathroom, barely skidding to a stop in front of the toilet before he lost it. Who on earth had let him drink so much? 

He slumped down onto the floor, flushing the toilet and resting his head on his arm. This might be a low point. He was twenty-eight now; he couldn’t drink like he was twenty-one anymore, and he really wished someone had reminded him of that fact last night. 

The house had been completely dark by the time he got back, even though he couldn’t have been any more than ten minutes behind the rest of his friends. Jackie’s door was closed when he stumbled passed it, Nick and Jack sprawled out on the couches in the living room. The door to Isabelle’s room - the guest room; he had to start calling it the guest room again - was cracked open when Alex normally kept it shut tight, and he could only assume Mark and Leven were in there. He barely made it to his own bed before he passed out.

Alex woke up to a text from Natalie, his phone dinging loudly right next to his ear. He jerked awake, grabbing it. She had sent him an E! Online link, the accompanying text a row of question marks. His heart sank. What had he done last night?

He opened the article, a giant picture of him and Kat splashed across the page. The night started to come back to him in bits and pieces, and he remembered seeing her, remembered that she had helped him get home. Unfortunately, that was not what it looked like in the picture. He had one hand planted on top of the door of the Escalade, looking down at her as she stood close to him, her hand on his chest. Oh, this did not look good.

Alex stood up, washing his mouth out under the faucet of the sink and falling back into bed, pushing his phone as far away from him as possible as if that would make the article go away. He hadn’t even bothered to read it or to text Natalie back. He would deal with that once his hangover went away, which might be never based on how bad he felt right now. 

Thank God Jackie was hungover too, or she would have kicked his door down bright and early. On a normal day, the girl woke up at five o’clock and immediately went through any Google Alerts that had come in under Alex’s name the night before. Maybe he should sneak into her room and steal her phone before she could see any of this. But no, Alex had learned his lesson the last time he had barged in there. He wasn’t making that mistake again. 

He had, however, completely forgotten about Leven and the fact that no matter how much that girl drank, she did not get hungover. It was witchcraft, something that she rubbed in their faces constantly. Once his stomach stopped sloshing around, he pulled on sweatpants and made his way carefully downstairs, steadying himself on the railing and trying to ignore the sun that was beating in through the giant windows.

Leven was sitting at the counter, a cup of coffee and a piece of toast in front of her. “Hey,” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “You’re up.”

She raised her eyebrows at him over the rim of her mug. “Do you want to explain to me what happened last night?”

“Okay, Lev, like I’m the one who needs to explain anything.” He rolled his eyes at her, regretting the motion instantly when it only exacerbated his pounding headache. He yanked open a cabinet door, grabbing the Advil and shaking three into his hand, swallowing them dry. “You guys just up and left me after I specifically asked you not to.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” she said haughtily. “Jackie wanted to go, and there was no stopping her. Plus we genuinely forgot that you were there.”

“Gee, thanks.” He sat down next to her, putting his hand down on the cool marble of the kitchen island. “I love you too, Lev.”

She poked him in the arm once, and then twice, finally lifting up his arm and sliding her phone towards him. He raised his head a couple of inches, looking at the screen to see the picture of himself and Kat staring back at him. “Oh, God.”

“Oh, God is right, Alex. What the hell happened?”

“It’s not what it looks like. How did you even find this already? Do you have my Google Alerts turned on too?” Leven cleared her throat, the tops of her ears turning red, and she ducked her head. Alex raised his eyebrows at her. “Lev.”

“Someone sent it to me,” she muttered.

“Who?” He already knew, but he kept asking. “Who? Leven, who?”

She mumbled something into her coffee cup, and he grabbed it from her, pushing it away from her. “No. No more coffee until you tell me who.”

“You know who,” she snapped, eyeing the cup. “Isabelle.”

And that’s when Alex threw up again. 

“Oh my God, Alex!” Leven jerked back, trying to get out of the splash zone, hitting the mug, spilling coffee everywhere, and failing miserably. Of course, that was the moment Jackie and Dayo took to come into the kitchen, stopping short once they saw the chaos that was ensuing.

“Um…” Jackie tugged the oversized t-shirt of Dayo’s that she was wearing down over her bare legs. In any other circumstance, Alex would have to give her shit for it, but that was not a possibility right now. “What the hell is going on?”

Alex sat up, wiping his mouth as gracefully as he possibly could. “Nothing.”

“Well…” Jackie wrinkled her nose at him, looking a little green herself. “It looks like you just threw up on the kitchen floor.”

“That might be accurate.”

“Jesus, Alex,” Dayo said, taking the long way around the kitchen island to get to the fridge, throwing the roll of paper towels at Alex as he went. “Could you maybe clean it up?”

“No, I’m just going to leave it there forever,” Alex snapped, ripping off a couple of pieces from the roll and letting them float down onto the floor on top of the mess. He had been wrong earlier. This, here, was actually his low point.

Once everything was cleaned up and he felt like his stomach had settled down, he caught Leven’s eye, jerking his head towards the stairs. She nodded, refilling her coffee cup and following him out of the kitchen, leaving Dayo and Jackie behind to do whatever it was Dayo and Jackie did. “Here,” Leven said, slipping under his arm and into the room, handing him a piece of dry toast wrapped in a napkin. “You should eat.”

Alex collapsed on his bed, taking a tiny bite of the toast and waiting to see if he was going to throw up again. Once he realized that there was nothing left in his stomach for him to throw up, he shoved half of it in his mouth, suddenly starving. “Explain,” he said, crumbs flying everywhere.

Leven crawled up onto the bed next to him, pulling out her phone. “There’s nothing to explain.”

“If she is sending you articles about me, then there’s something to explain for damn sure, Lev.”

She let out a heavy sigh, like Alex was the one who was being exasperating in this situation. Alex fought the urge to grab her phone out of her hand and look at her text messages himself, but that could also be a dangerous game. He had gone so long without knowing anything about Isabelle’s life that it felt weird to suddenly be talking about it, have that information right in front of him if he wanted it.

“How much do you want to know?” Leven asked, reading his mind.

He hesitated, thinking about it. “I guess I don’t want to know much,” he said finally. That would only make it harder to move on. “Just tell me what she said. About the article.”

Leven unlocked her phone, pulling up her texts. Alex looked away, not wanting to see anything. “She just sent me the link and said ‘good night?’” Leven looked up at him. “I told her we were going out for Cody’s birthday.”

There were so many questions running through Alex’s brain that he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to ask first or if he even wanted to ask anything at all. Finally, he settled for the latter. “Ah. Okay.” 

Leven frowned at him. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. There’s nothing to say. It’s out there.”

“Have you read it?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

“No.”

Leven collapsed backwards, burying her face in the pillow and undoubtedly getting makeup all over a six-hundred thread count pillowcase. He would kill her for that later. He had completely forgotten what he kept stashed under the pillow until she sat up, a confused look on her face and a folded up wad of paper in her hand. 

“What is this?”

Alex lunged towards her, tackling her completely off the bed and barely managing to roll underneath her so that he didn’t crush her when they hit the floor. “Give it,” he said, grabbing for the paper, which she held just out of reach.

“What the fuck, Alex?” she screeched, trying to scramble away from him as quickly as possible. A full-on fight ensued, Leven trying to make a break for the door and Alex grabbing her around the waist, holding onto her with one arm and plucking the paper from her hand with the other. He deposited her back onto the ground, shoving the paper down the front of his pants, figuring that she would not go down there. He figured wrong.

“Leven!” She darted into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and locking it. “Leven, come on!”

“Alex.” Her voice floated through the door. “Where did you get this?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“I don’t see how this-” He could hear her flapping the papers through the door. “Is any of your business!”

He kicked the door once petulantly. “Fine. Jack gave it to me.”

Leven let out an even bigger sign than she normally did when it came to Jack. “Of course he did.”

Alex read Isabelle’s words every night before he went to sleep. He knew them by heart at this point, knew what was coming before he got there, but he still read them, his eyes getting stuck on certain parts and his heart aching a little less with every word. Even though things had gone completely to shit, even though Alex had ruined them, she had still felt something for him, something big. He would hold onto that until he didn’t need to anymore.

Leven cracked open the bathroom door, peeking out. Alex held his hands up. “Okay,” he said. “I give.”

“Oh, Alex,” she said, her voice softening. She folded the papers back up, the edges worn and creased, the words starting to fade, the paper soft under his hands as she gave it back to him. He closed his eyes when she hugged him, rested his chin on top of her head as she wrapped her arms around him, holding him so tightly that he felt like his chest might burst. But as they stood there in the hot sun of the morning, he felt like with every second it got just a tiny bit easier to breathe.


	17. it's no wonder i came back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / i bottled lightning, bagged thunder  
> / hustle standard is the eighth wonder  
> / so it's no wonder i came back  
> / never gone, take that  
> never give a fuck by rob bailey & the hustle standard

Jackie was punishing him for what had happened at The Bank with Kat. That was the only explanation for why she had scheduled a Nike appearance during fight week. 

Normally, Alex loved stuff like this. He liked taking pictures and talking to people and signing autographs, and he especially loved seeing kids who reminded him of himself back in the day. But he was officially more stressed out than he had ever been for a fight in his life, and he didn’t have a lot of faith in his ability to smile for a million cameras and make pleasant small talk at this point in his life.

“I don’t even want to hear it, Alex,” Jackie said when he stormed into her office. She didn’t look up, the glow from her computer screen reflecting off her glasses. He opened his mouth, and she cut him off. “Nope. What’s done is done.”

He sat down, leaning forward and resting his elbows on her desk, waiting for her to look up at him. She kept typing, ignoring him completely, until he reached around the monitor and pressed a button on her keyboard. “Alex! You’re five years old!”

“You’ve known that for years,” he said, leaning back. “But Jackie, come on. During fight week? Are you kidding me? We’re supposed to be moving into the Grand tomorrow.”

“And we still are.” She pushed her glasses up onto the top of her head. “We’ll go over there first thing in the morning, meet the camera crew, and then head to the event.”

Alex groaned, leaning back. “This is the biggest fight of my life, Jackie. I can’t be distracted.”

Jackie glared at him, shutting her notebook with a snap. “You haven’t done a public appearance all year, Alex. I have the Nike people breathing down my neck. You’re doing this.”

Truthfully, Alex had been completely missing in action since the New Year’s Eve fight. Normally, he did a couple of print interviews and some television stuff after a fight, but he hadn’t been in any condition to do any of that with his broken ribs and shoulder surgery and a piss poor attitude, as Jackie would say. And he certainly hadn’t been holding up his end of the Nike contract. 

Alex sighed heavily, knowing that nothing he said really mattered because he would do anything for Jackie. “While you’re here,” she said, turning the monitor towards him. “Let’s go over your schedule.”

The last couple of weeks had been a whirlwind fight camp. Alex had barely seen anyone; instead of bringing in fighters from wherever he could find them, Dayo had closed the gym completely for two weeks, sending people out to Urijah Faber’s gym instead. It was unusual for them; normally, Alex thrived off having loads of people around to practice with. But they had had a long discussion a few months ago after Alex announced his comeback, deciding to do things differently this time.

“Look at it this way,” Dayo had said. “It can’t hurt, and it can only help.”

Everything was different this time around. Alex felt more focused, more in shape, better prepared. He also felt a hell of a lot lonelier. The apartment wasn’t empty, not by a long shot with Dayo, Mark, and Nick all there, but it felt weird to come home and not immediately go find Isabelle and tell her about his day. 

He had made it through the heaviest two weeks of camp with zero injuries. His cardio was better than it had ever been. He hadn’t touched a carb in months, and he was lean without being weak. He would barely even have to cut any weight, giving him as much extra energy as possible. But he didn’t feel right. Not without Isabelle.

Nick had been trying to snap him out of that for weeks, and Alex knew Dayo was worried. “I can’t put my finger on it,” he overhead one night, lurking outside of Jackie’s room. “He’s better than ever, technically. But something is wrong.”

“You know what’s wrong,” Jackie said, and Alex could hear her moving around, pulling down the shades and cleaning up, the same way she always did every night before she went to bed. 

“I know.” Dayo sighed. “I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“There’s nothing to do,” Jackie said, and Alex slipped away, not wanting to hear the rest of the conversation. Jackie was right; there was nothing to do. Isabelle was gone. She had been gone for seven months, and seven months was definitely enough time to get over a relationship that had lasted barely eight weeks. There was no discernible reason that Alex was still pining for her, still thought about her every waking second, but he did, and that was that. He had learned to live with it, and the rest of them would too.

Leven had been around a lot lately, and Alex knew it wasn’t just because Mark was staying with him. She was there when he woke up in the morning, making breakfast, and she was there when he got home at night, ready to watch film with him or sit there with a magazine while he swam laps or come into his room at night to watch Gray’s Anatomy with him. 

He didn’t know whether it was her doing or Mark’s or Jackie’s, but whatever it was, he appreciated it. When he was with her, his heart felt normal again, at least on the surface.

She burst into Jackie’s office now, the door opening wildly and practically sending Alex flying out of his chair. “Jesus Christ, Lev.” He glared at her even as he was reaching towards her, pulling her down to him to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m too old for the heart attack I have every time you enter a room.”

“Sorry.” She smiled sweetly, and Alex knew that she was not sorry. “Are you done here?”

“Please take him.” Jackie pushed her glasses back down onto her nose, already typing away again. 

Alex stuck his tongue out at Jackie as Leven dragged him out of the office, slamming the door behind them. “Where are we going?”

“Don’t ask questions,” she said, pushing him toward the staircase. He barely managed to keep his balance, missing a step and tripping up the stairs, Leven grabbing his arm at the last second. They ended up Isabelle’s bedroom - the guest room, Alex, the guest room - and Leven pushed him through it, out onto the balcony. There were a couple of chairs and an almost dead fern, but Leven wasn’t concerned with any of that.

“Look,” she said, pointing up at the sky. It was pitch black, like velvet over their heads and studded with stars. As Alex watched, shooting stars streaked across the sky, falling one by one past them. “It’s a meteor shower,” she said. “I didn’t know if we would be able to see it in the city like this, but I guess we’re high up enough.”

“Wow,” he said, tracing the path of one of them with his eyes. Leven laced her fingers through his, holding onto his arm with her other hand and resting her head on his shoulder. They stood there like that for a long time, the warm night air wrapping them up, watching the sky fall around them.

* * *

His suitcases had exploded.

This new, better version of Alex that he had been trying to cultivate over the last few months was still a procrastinator, as evidenced by the fact that it was the morning of the first day of fight week, he was supposed to be leaving for the MGM Grand in fifteen minutes, and he was still not done packing. Typical.

Leven was helping as much as Leven could; she kept getting distracted by his closet. “Why don’t you ever wear any of this stuff, Alex?” she kept asking, picking up a shirt or a pair of jeans or a watch. 

“I’m at the gym ninety-eight percent of the time, Lev,” he said, throwing socks across the room towards his open suitcases. “I live in sweatpants.”

“Maybe you should branch out.”

His suit for media day was all ready to go, hanging up in the closet. This one was a crisp charcoal gray, clean lines and thin lapels. It was different from what he normally went with, more corporate, but this was a different game this time around. 

Jackie had made the executive decision to cut back on filming with the UFC Embedded crew as much as they were allowed. Thanks to her, the apartment was blissfully quiet, or as much as it could be with six people in it. He felt like he was going to throw up from the nerves, and he couldn’t thank Jackie enough for making that decision. Instead of the whole crew crowding into the apartment that morning, they would be meeting him at the hotel, giving him a few last moments of peace and quiet.

“Alex!” Well, peace and quiet and Leven. 

They were zipping up the suitcases with two minutes to spare, Jackie already yelling up the stairs for them. If Alex thought he was nervous, she was on a whole other level. “We’re coming!” he screamed back, getting into a quick slap fight with Leven because she kept taking things out of his suitcase, trying to replace them. “Come on,” he hissed at her, dragging the bags towards the door and kicking it open, pushing them out into the hall with a thump. “Jackie will whoop both our asses if we’re late.”

Everyone else was already gathered in the kitchen, duffel bags and suitcases spread out around them. Mark smiled smugly at Alex, clearly impressed that he had managed to beat them downstairs. Jackie looked pointedly at her watch. “I’m right on time,” Alex snapped. 

“For once.”

Instead of Isabelle next to him in the McLaren this time, it was Leven by his side in the G-Wagon, Mark and Nick in the backseat. Jackie and Dayo followed them in the Escalade. Alex could feel his hands shaking, clenched his fists to try to get them to stop. It didn’t work, and as they drove the block and a half to the MGM Grand, Leven grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly, her heartbeat against his palm.

They pulled up to the hotel at the exact same time Dominic did, and as Alex was getting out of the car, he tried not to make eye contact with him. He promised Jackie and Dayo he would keep it together this time, but the kid was not going to make it easy on him. Dominic came right up to him, started to open his mouth, but Alex pushed past him quickly, handing his keys to the valet and letting the hotel staff worry about the luggage. He had to get out of this situation as quickly as possible; Jackie would actually kill him if he got in a fight in front of dozens of paparazzi and a buttload of screaming fans.

“Move,” he heard Leven snap at Dominic, and a smile played over his face as they pushed through the front doors of the hotel. 

His mom and sisters were already in the skyloft when they got there, bursting into the room like a SWAT team with twenty suitcases between the six of them; he could (and would) blame Leven for the majority of that. He had just seen them all a couple of months ago at Natalie’s graduation, but they looked different, maybe because they were nervous or maybe because he himself was different.

He hugged all three of them, pressing his face into the tops of their heads and holding onto them for a second longer than he normally might. “Are you good?” Natalie asked once he pulled back.

Alex nodded, handing her his house keys. They would be staying at the apartment for the week with Bear, and Alex knew Natalie was dying to see him.

They sat around and caught up, Alex asking about the fight and Natalie’s new job and Sophia’s summer classes before everyone scattered to the far reaches of the skyloft. Alex ended up out on the balcony of his bedroom, pulling his shirt off over his head as he sat down, the sun beating down on him. He closed his eyes, remembering the last time he was out here, hearing Isabelle talk about him.

He pulled out the folded sheaf of paper from the pocket of his jeans, opening up to the last page. The paper was practically falling apart in his hands, so creased and worn. He read the last line over and over again, and when he closed his eyes, the memory of kissing her for the last time flooded his brain.

If he thought about it for too long, he could still smell her, feel her, taste her. He hadn’t forgotten, not in seven months, and he didn’t think he would be able to forget as long as he lived.

He pulled his phone out, trying to clear his mind of her. The first thing that popped up when he opened Instagram was a picture of his belt. That motherfucker. One of the cameraman had slipped out onto the balcony, was setting up to film, and Alex held the phone out to him. “You see this shit, Bryan?” He shook his head, fighting the urge to leave a comment. 

Dominic had tried to pull the same shit he always did, goading Alex into starting something, but he had kept completely off of social media for the majority of fight camp, staying radio silent on Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram. He wasn’t even checking Isabelle’s pages incessantly anymore, although it took everything in him not to. 

“Alright,” he said to Bryan after a while. The sun was high in the sky, and it was only getting hotter. “Let’s cut weight.”

* * *

Alex rarely did public practices. He was superstitious that way, didn’t want anyone to see how he got ready for a fight, even if none of it was really a secret. But here he was, getting ready to spar with Dayo in front of a couple hundred people in one of the MGM Grand’s event rooms. The Nike people were waiting for him outside the room, shaking his hand and telling him how excited they were that he was back. 

He cracked his neck, holding out an arm to stop Dayo and Mark and Nick. They stood there for a few seconds. “You ready?” Mark asked. Alex shook his head. Another couple of seconds passed. “You ready now?”

Alex took a deep breath. “Yep.” 

He had been under no impression that people still cared about who he was; that was the nature of the sport after all. After the Sports Illustrated article had come out, he had stopped reading about himself entirely. He didn’t watch ESPN anymore or pay attention any of the pre-fight coverage. He assumed that once he lost, people would lose interest in him.

He had been wrong.

When the doors to the event room opened in front of him, he was met with cheers and screams and camera flashes, and for the first time in the last couple of weeks, the knot in his stomach loosened a little. He made his way through the crowd toward the mats that were set up, Dayo clearing a path in front of him. People were reaching out to touch him, grab his arm or pat him on the shoulder, and even though he had been doing this for so long, he felt a little overwhelmed, tears pricking behind his eyes. 

The event went smoothly, Jackie hitting him with an “I told you so” as soon as he got back to the skyloft. She was sitting in front of her computer, already scrolling through pictures to decide what to post on Alex’s Instagram. 

“I know.” He dropped his duffel bag on the floor, dropping down into a chair next to her at the table.

“Which one?” She turned her laptop towards him, and he pointed to one of the pictures, the crowd spread out behind them, Alex’s hands wrapped, Dayo holding up pads. She pulled up her email, dragging the picture into a message and sending it to Alex. He saved it to his phone, opening up the app, typing out a caption, and only pausing for a second before hitting share.

“Still a beautiful fight,” Jackie read out loud, looking up from her phone at Alex. “What’s that mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that I haven’t given up yet.”

Jackie eyed him carefully, and he knew she was wondering if he was okay. He would never be able to say enough to convince her that he was, so he just shrugged, looking back at his Instagram where the likes and well-wishes were starting to pour in. Leven had tagged him in a post, uploading her own picture of him from the Nike event, the caption reading “Can’t wait to see my boy crush it this weekend!” He liked it, typing out a quick comment and quickly closing the app before his curiosity got the better of him. He wasn’t going to sit here stalking Leven’s likes to see if Isabelle’s name was among them. Not yet anyways.

In the last couple of weeks, he had found himself fighting the urge to send her a message, had actually typed out a few texts before deleting them quickly, his hands shaking. He didn’t know if it was because the fight was coming up and he was remembering all of the moments they had shared last time, but he wanted to say something, anything, to let her know that she was still on his mind all the time. 

Alex should not be left to his own devices. This much was clear.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?” Jackie asked him, jerking him out of his thoughts. He put his phone on the table face down, so he wouldn’t be tempted to look at it every five seconds. 

“Better than ever.” He eyed the fridge across the room behind her, trying to decide what he wanted to eat. The answer, as always, was a bunch of crap he wasn’t allowed to have until the fight was over, but that sure wasn’t going to stop him from thinking about it. 

“What did the doctor say?”

Alex had had an MRI a couple of days ago, one last one to make sure that everything looked good. “That I’m going to win.”

Jackie laughed. “You are.”

There had been plenty of time in his schedule for him to overthink things, even with all of the training and appearances and fight camp. Normally, in the weeks leading up to a fight and especially in the days before, he was more confident than anything else, even with the nerves and anxiety. This time… not so much. All he felt was anxious, the pit in his stomach weighing him down with every step. His hands shook all the time, like he was overly caffeinated, which was probably the case and certainly didn’t help the situation.

Nick was the only one who was really able to calm him down, knowing just the right things to say. But right now, he was nowhere to be found, off somewhere with Mark and Dayo, prepping for the fight. 

Alex scooted his chair closer to Jackie’s, dropping his head onto her shoulder. She stopped typing, reaching up and curling her hand around the back of his neck. He breathed in her smell, like cinnamon sugar and a hint of something floral. As they sat there, he felt his heart rate start to come down, forgot about Dominic and the fight and Isabelle for a few moments.

The next couple of days went by without a hitch. When Alex wasn’t getting drug tested or signing autographs or cutting weight, he kept himself as busy as possible, putting miles underneath him on the treadmill or lifting weights when Dayo was distracted. When he thought back to the prep for his last fight, he remembered his shoulder feeling weak, aching when he woke up in the morning and feeling like it would pop out of his socket if he moved wrong during a workout. That was just a distant memory now.

It wasn’t until press day that Alex really started believing that he was back. 

The Nike event had reminded him that people still cared about him, were still rooting for him, still believed in him, but it wasn’t until he walked into the press conference, suit on, tie fastened, heart pounding, that he realized he was still a big deal.

He had been so cut off from the world for the entirety of the year that it was shocking to see so many faces and cameras pointed in his direction. Dominic wasn’t there yet; as the defending champion, he got the privilege of coming in last, making an entrance, but Alex didn’t care about that right now. Everyone was trying to get his attention, yelling at him to look in their direction, and he cleared his throat as he walked to his table, sat down in front of his microphone and adjusted it.

Dana was already there, standing at the podium between the two tables, and he moved to shake Alex’s hand and give him a pat on the back as he passed. He had to do everything in his power to keep his hands from shaking, knew people would be watching him for any sign of weakness. 

He didn’t even glance over at Dominic when he walked in and sat down, slamming the belt down on the table. Alex winced internally. He refused to give him the satisfaction, but he knew the kid was trying to make eye contact with him, wanted to start something. He always wanted to start something.

Dana started the press conference right on time, everyone quickly quieting as soon as he directed the first question to Alex. He had had a lot media training, since Jackie didn’t trust him to form a sentence on his own, but he still felt like his heart was going to burst with everyone looking at him and waiting for him to answer.

“Alex,” Dana said. “I’m sure this is the biggest thing everyone here wants to know.” Alex couldn’t see Dominic, but he knew he was rolling his eyes. “How is your shoulder doing?”

“Better than ever,” Alex said quickly, but not too quickly, like he was hiding something. “I had been really long overdue for the surgery, but I kept putting it off and putting it off, and…” He gestured towards the journalists and cameramen. “As everyone saw, that really cost me in the fight. But I’ve been really focusing on physical therapy and taking it slow, and my most recent MRI shows that it’s stronger than it has been in years.”

“Has it changed the way that you’ve trained for this fight at all?”

“The shoulder injury itself, no. But the loss, yes.”

“Can you explain that?”

Alex took a deep breath, catching Dayo’s eye off to the side. His coach nodded reassuringly, even as Jackie had a death grip on his arm. “It was more of a mindset thing,” Alex said, choosing his words as carefully as possible. Jackie had prepped him for these questions, but it was so different having her in front of him, asking him about his fight camp schedule. “I had to really convince myself that I’m still a good fighter and that one loss doesn’t define who I am.”

Their strategy for media day, and the entirety of fight week itself, was transparency and honesty. “We want people to be able to really connect with you,” Jackie said. “You’ve been, quite honestly, a legend of this sport for years - no, Alex, don’t shake your head at me. It’s true. And that makes you a little unrelatable. Here’s our chance to change that. You fell, you broke, and now you’re getting back up again.”

“There was never any doubt that I was going anywhere,” Alex continued. That was a blatant lie, but no one knew that, except for him and his team. “But I wanted to make sure I came back the right way.”

His biggest fear was, of course, that he would lose again. One loss was one thing. Two in a row would be the start of a streak. He tried not to get bogged down in those thoughts, but it was difficult, more than difficult than any part of his training had been. Jackie had discussed bringing in a sports psychologist at one point, but Dayo had put the kibosh on that, arguing that it would only stress Alex out more. He didn’t know what he thought, but he was glad that he wasn’t the one who had to think about stuff like that.

Dana turned to Dominic, and Alex tried his best to tune him out, knowing that Dominic would only be saying things to try to rile him up. “You two have exchanged some harsh words in the past,” Dana said, directing the question to Alex. “Do you want to speak on that?”

Alex made sure not to meet Jackie’s eye for this one. “You know, we’re not playing basketball or baseball or even football. We’re walking into a cage where we’re going to fight each other. So threatening me backstage and all this stuff… it’s no surprise to me. That’s kind of what we volunteered for.” Even making the deliberate decision to look away from Jackie, he could see her shaking her head, so he quickly added a caveat. “But it’s kid stuff. I’m trying not to engage this time.” 

On the other side of Dana, Dominic cracked his neck, the lights hitting the belt in front of him. “Dominic?” Dana asked.

“I don’t like him,” Dominic said flatly. “It’s been his sport for a long time. It’s mine now. It’s my division now. I’ve got the belt.”

Alex opened his mouth, wanting to shoot back with a “not for long,” but he snapped his mouth shut when he saw Jackie’s glare. “Get a grip,” she mouthed at him. 

He tried. He really did, really thinking about his choice of words. “If you’re going to talk online and come at me with that sort of energy,” Alex said, “then keep that same energy when you see me on site. That’s it.” He leaned back, away from the microphone, before he said something harsher. 

The questions came flying at them, Alex holding his tongue, not saying what he really wanted to say. “The bottom line,” he said to Dana’s final question about what set him apart from Dominic and his fighting style, “is that I can dig deeper. No one can dig as hard as I can dig, and I think the loss really helped me to figure that out. So, you know, I want him to bring his best game, because I am still better than him on his best day.”

Dominic opened his mouth, but Alex stood up, signifying that they were done. Dana looked at him, nodding, and he walked off the side of the stage, down the stairs to where Jackie and Dayo were waiting. They hustled him out of the event room as quickly as possible, making sure they went the back way so as not to cross paths with Dominic and his entourage. 

“That was great,” Jackie said, her voice low. “So good, Alex. Just keep it up for the rest of the week and we’ll be golden, and my head won’t actually fly off into the sun.”

It felt like there was a giant weight lifted off him. He wouldn’t have to say much at the weigh-ins, just keep his cool and not engage. The hard part was behind them, at least for now, and he could focus on the fight. 

“You have got to relax,” Alex said, giving her the first real smile he had been able to muster in days. “You’d think getting laid on the reg would help you out with that.”

“Alex!” She pinched him in the soft skin below his ribs. “Inappropriate.” 

“Entirely appropriate,” he said as they approached the elevators, waiting for them to bring them back up to the skyloft. “And entirely my business since it is happening in my apartment.”

Dayo just rolled his eyes. 

Leven popped up from the couch when they pushed open the door to the loft. “How’d it go?” 

“Perfect,” Jackie said, grinning at her. Alex hadn’t seen Jackie this relaxed in weeks, months even. For once, she didn’t run straight to her laptop, instead sitting down on the couch next to Jack and swinging her legs up into his lap. Alex loved that she took care of him, knew he would have nothing without her, but he also loved it when she was able to let her hair down, act like a normal woman in her mid-twenties and not someone who was beaten down by the weight of the world and all the shit he piled on top of her.

They hadn’t talked much about what was going to happen after this fight, not like last time. They hadn’t planned any vacations, any time off, any appearances or events or endorsements. Alex knew that Jackie was itching to get things lined up, knew that there had to be offers pouring in with all of the hype around the fight surrounding them, but he couldn’t get himself to look past Fight Night yet. If he made it through, if he came out the winner, he would let Jackie sign him up for whatever she wanted. He would relinquish complete control.

* * *

When he woke up the morning of the fight, his head was filled with Isabelle. It always was, but being back here in the loft staring down the barrel of the title fight, it was even more distinct than ever. The last time he had been here in this situation, she was next to him, waking him up with warm lips against his neck and whispered promises in his ear.

This time, he was alone. 

Well, except for Jackie.

“How long have you been sitting there?” Alex asked, jerking upright once he saw her perched in the overstuffed chair next to the window. She had a cup of coffee in her hands, and she stared at him over the rim, steam spiraling upwards.

“Not long.” She took a sip.

He closed his eyes, trying to stay in his dreams of Isabelle as long as he could, but it was useless at this point. He was awake, and his stomach was in knots. 

The weigh-ins had gone smoothly, unlike last time. It took everything Alex had not to react as Dominic tried to get a rise out of him, but he ignored him, moved past him without looking at him and didn’t even flinch when Dominic got in his face at the official weigh-in. “Remember,” Jackie had said to him at least five times as they made their way to the arena that morning. “Your silence is louder than whatever the fuck he’s saying. People will notice that.”

If anything, it gave them some great pictures: the two of them up on the stage, ring girls lined up in the background, Dana in between them, Dominic’s mouth open, yelling, and Alex just standing there, chin up, smirk on his face, silent. He posted one to his Instagram the night before the fight, changed the filter to black and white, and then promptly dropped his phone when Madeline was among the first to like it. 

“Here,” Jackie said, leaning forward and handing Alex her cup. He took a big sip, wincing at how strong it was. Jackie usually drank her coffee black, no cream or sugar because she was a lunatic, but this was intense even for her. “It’s gonna be a long day,” she said before he could comment. “Don’t judge me.”

She crawled into bed next to him, flipping on the television and pulling up Friday Night Lights, just like they always did. Alex grabbed his phone, immediately opening Instagram to see if Isabelle had liked his picture from the weigh-in. She had not. 

He shook his head. This was not what was important right now, that was for damn sure.

As the pilot episode played on the screen, Alex flicked through his pictures, trying to decide if he should post one more thing before the fight. He paused on a black and white photo from the Sports Illustrated shoot, a shot of him from behind doing pull-ups, backlit by the sun coming in through the windows. “Yeah, that one,” Jackie said, hooking her chin over his shoulder. 

“Stop snooping,” he said, nudging her, but even as he did, he started typing out his caption.

@alexanderludwig: what we have is special, it can be taken from us, and when it is we will be tested to our very souls.

Leven joined them a few minutes later, climbing into bed on the other side of Alex and pushing her cold feet against his leg. Alex felt like he could have stayed there forever, the bed soaked in sunlight, his girls next to him, but it all came to an end quickly enough, Jackie’s alarm going off and the skyloft bursting into life.

It was chaos in the kitchen, his family and his team moving around each other, bumping into counters and chairs and each other, Mark and Natalie fighting over space at the stove. “Move!” Alex heard her say as he came down the stairs, saw her jab Mark in the ribs with a sharp little elbow. “You’re taking too long!”

“Tell him, Nat,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table, his mom immediately bringing him a fresh cup of coffee. 

“How are you feeling?” She put her warm hand on his shoulder, and he swallowed, a nervous lump suddenly forming in his throat. He just nodded, not sure he could keep his voice from shaking if he tried to speak out loud. Thankfully, they all knew the process, knew what he was feeling, and he didn’t have to explain any more than that. 

He didn’t know how he got through the next twelve hours, how he didn’t jump out of his skin. He went for a run, took a long shower, tried to relax as much as possible, but every nerve ending in his body felt like it was on fire, and he couldn’t get his brain to shut off long enough to even take a nap. He ended up pacing around the bedroom, looking down at the city below him. 

It was eight o’clock when Jackie knocked on his door. Why the hell didn’t she look stressed out? Normally, she would be up here pacing with him, and instead he had barely seen her all day. He loved that she finally had someone to take care of her, but he needed her to be a little bit high-strung still or he wouldn’t know how to act.

“You ready to go?” She leaned against the doorframe, dressed to the nines in black leather pants, heels, and a white tank top, her hair piled up on top of her head. 

He sat down on the end of the bed, suddenly feeling like he might fall over, like his legs weren’t strong enough to hold him up. She sat down next to him, resting her palm on his back, her fingers stroking gently over his spine. “Deep breath,” she said, and he put his head down, concentrating on getting air into his lungs. He felt his hands shaking, clenched them into fists.

This was it.

This was everything he had been working towards, the last few weeks and months and years. This was where he was going to prove to himself, and to anyone else who might be watching, that he could come back. He could be a champion again.


	18. had to have high high hopes for a living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> / mama said don't give up, it's a little complicated  
> / all tied up, no more love, and i'd hate to see you waiting  
> / they say it's all been done but they haven't seen the best of me  
> / so i got one more run and it's gonna be a sight to see  
> / had to have high high hopes for a living  
> / shooting for the stars when i couldn't make a killing  
> / didn't have a dime but i always had a vision  
> / always had high high hopes  
> high hopes by panic! at the disco

Alex was currently in more pain than he had ever been in for as long as he could remember.

Sure, he had broken his leg when he was ten in a skiing accident. And then his arm when he was twelve - another skiing accident before his mom finally put the kibosh on that. And then there were all the injuries that came as part and parcel of being a fighter: broken ribs, broken noses, broken cheekbones, broken fingers and knuckles and toes. He had gotten concussions, bone bruises, and more scars across his face than he could count, not to mention the torn rotator cuff. But this might actually be the worst. 

It wasn’t that he had broken or torn something or that he was tired; it was more of a bone-aching fatigue that had settled into his body after the second round. He circled around Dominic, eyeing him warily, trying to catch his breath.

There was blood everywhere.

Dominic had hit him with a big left at the beginning of the second round, Alex ducking under it at the last second but coming up short. It opened up a cut in the same damn place as the first fight, and suddenly he couldn’t see, blinking blood out of his eyes as it streamed down his face. 

They got it mopped up as best they could in between the second and the third round, but Alex could feel it there, opening up every time he moved, threw a punch or a kick, went for the takedown.

Dominic didn’t look any better than him. He was going to have one hell of a black eye once this was over, and it looked like his lip was bleeding. His chest was heaving, and if there was one thing Alex was thankful for right now it was that Dayo had made him do more cardio over the past few months than he had done in his entire life. 

He could dig deeper. He was digging deeper. He was going to win.

Alex hadn’t been the first one in the ring in years. As the defending champion, he was always second, always the one people were waiting on, the main show. This time was different. He tried not to think about that as he made his way into the ring, the music almost drowned out by the screams of the crowd.

He had changed his walkout song; it had been Skillet for years, but he wanted a fresh start. He and Leven had sat at the kitchen counter for what felt like hours, their laptops and iPads and phones spread out in front of them, trying to pick something new. They considered everything from NF to Kendrick Lamar to Hoodie Allen (“No. Nope. No. Absolutely not,” was Leven’s response to the last one, and now Alex was convinced that she had, at some point, slept with Hoodie Allen). 

They finally landed on Never Give a Fuck by Rob Bailey, Leven playing it over and over and over. “Listen,” she said to Alex. “It’s about coming back. It’s about being the best and not caring what anyone thinks and not having to prove anything to anyone. Isn’t that what you want?”

Walking through the stadium, his team behind him, hood pulled up, scowl on his face, he knew that Leven was right. It was the perfect song.

Dominic was still in the back, and Alex’s stomach was in knots at the thought of having to wait for him to make his big entrance. He tried to push the thought out of his brain as the officials looked him over and his cutman rubbed Vaseline on his face. “Don’t think about it,” Dayo muttered in his ear as they checked the tape on his hands. He looked down, Jackie’s name signed big and loopy on the top of his right hand. “We’re with you.”

Alex paused at the entrance to the cage, kneeling down and putting his glove on the floor. Everything you’ve got, he told himself. Leave it there. 

He jogged around the ring, shaking out his arms and trying to ignore everything that was going on around him. The ring girls and the announcers’ voices and the noises from the crowd faded away, and he kept his eyes locked on Jackie, sitting ringside, holding onto Natalie’s hand. Every time she caught his eye, she nodded at him reassuringly.

She had sat with him in the back room, just the two of them, for a few moments before he had to walk out there and put his career on the line. The rest of his team had been there too, signing his tape and doing some last minute sparring. But when Jackie had stood up, starting to corral everyone into the hallway so Alex could have a minute by himself, he stopped her, grabbed her hand.

“Jaq,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Stay with me.”

He didn’t have to say anything, didn’t have to tell her how he was feeling; she just knew. And she sat there, holding his hand, smoothing her fingers over his knee as it bounced up and down nervously. There was a knock on the door, Dayo’s voice floating through it to tell them that it was time, and she helped him stand up, reached up and cupped his face.

“You are better than him on his best day,” she whispered. “Everybody already knows that. You just have to prove it to yourself.”

And now here he was, trying to prove it. The fight had started off with a bang, Alex knocking Dominic backwards with a big punch. Their strategy last time had been to let him make the first move, force him to engage, but they had changed that completely. “Don’t even give him a chance to think,” Dayo had said over and over again, drilling it into Alex’s head. “This is going to be more of a psychological fight for you than anything. You have to get into his head.”

And he had. Alex could tell Dominic was hesitating, slower to throw punches and not going for the takedown at all. This is what they had planned on.

Alex was going to knock him out. That’s how he finished most of his fights, and that’s how he was going to finish this one. He wanted to make Dominic pay.

But the kid had stayed on his feet, somehow, inexplicably. He could take a punch, that much Alex could have to admit. They were in the middle of the third round, and no matter how hard Alex hit or what angle he came at him from, the kid refused to go down. Nobody hit like Alex did; everybody knew that. So why was he still on his feet?

The third round ended, the horn blowing loudly, cutting right through the ringing in Alex’s ears. He staggered back to his corner, Dayo pulling the stool underneath him and shoving him down into him. People moved around him in tandem, dabbing at the cut over his eye, which had opened up again and was pouring blood down into his eye and mouth, squirting water into his mouth, feeling along his ribs and shoulder.

He spit out his mouthguard and turned around for a second, chest heaving, to catch Jackie’s eye. Her face was white, her fingers clenched around Natalie’s, but she nodded at him. “Finish it,” he saw her mouth. He turned back around to where Dayo was talking.

“You won that one,” Dayo said. “You absolutely won that one.” Alex tried not to blink for too long, felt like the world was spinning every time he closed his eyes. “You have to keep going after him. Don’t wait for him to come to you.”

“He won’t go down,” Alex said, and he could feel blood slipping down the back of his throat. 

“He’s tired. He’s going to get stuck up against the cage if he tries anything.” Dayo gestured behind Alex to Nick, who wiped the sweat and blood off of Alex’s face with a towel. “You can ground and pound him now. You just have to get him down.”

He could have used another couple of minutes at the very least, but time was up, and he had to get back out there. He didn’t know if he had another round in him. 

As he stood up, cracked his neck and took a deep breath, he remembered kissing Isabelle for the last time in the back room before the fight on New Year’s Eve. He remembered how she had looked at him, something behind her eyes that he couldn’t describe, and he remembered all the things that he had wanted to say to her and never did. 

If there was anything he had learned over the past few months, it was that he had to finish things the right way. He hadn’t done that in the fight, and he hadn’t done it with Isabelle. He didn’t know if it was because he didn’t have faith in himself or if it was because he thought that by ignoring his emotions they would just go away. But it didn’t matter now; those days were behind him.

“You have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” Dayo had said to him months ago, when he had announced his comeback.

“These are your glory days.” That was Jackie on the first day of fight week. “You’re not going to let them pass by you because you think you aren’t worthy.”

“You were born for this,” Leven had told him that morning. “You’re a fighter, and you were made to be a legend.”

And Isabelle’s words, running through his brain on a loop from the second he had read them. “It’s been a beautiful fight. It still is.”

Alex looked at Dominic, standing there in front of him, and he suddenly viscerally hated him for trying to stand in his way again. Dominic couldn’t keep up with him; this was his sport and his ring and his title, and he was taking them back.

The horn blew, signaling the start of the fourth round, the ring girls circling the outside of the cage. Alex knew Dayo was right, that if he could just get Dominic to the ground, he could knock him out. He wouldn’t hesitate like he had the last time, wouldn’t assume the official was going to call the fight. He had to finish it.

But he didn’t want to finish it like that.

Alex was a knockout fighter. Everyone knew that. Dominic would be expecting that. The weaknesses in his ground game had showed up big time during the last fight. And now, with both of them tired and fighting to breathe, it would be easiest for Alex to end it with a ground and pound.

That’s why no one, especially Dominic, would be expecting him to go for the submission. 

Dayo was going to kill him; his number one rule was to stick to their game plan. But Leven was right; Alex was a fighter. He knew what he was doing. He was born for this.

He held back, heard Dayo screaming at him, waited for Dominic to come at him. He was hesitating, and Alex didn’t know if it was because he was tired or if it was just because he didn’t want to get hit again. 

Alex waited for his moment for the entire fourth round, and that moment did not come. By the time he collapsed back onto the stool in his corner, Dayo was spitting mad. There were cameras and microphones everywhere, so he tried to keep his voice low, but he was failing miserably. “What the fuck, Alex?” he hissed at him. Thankfully, the cut over his eye was starting to bleed a little less, the skin starting to stick together as the blood clotted. Alex looked up at Dayo, sucking down water as fast as he could.

“What?”

“What are you doing out there? Nothing happened!”

Alex winced as Mark moved a finger over his ribs, checking to make sure they felt okay. Okay was a relative term in their book; they actually felt like they were on fire, but they were still intact and that’s all they could ask for at this point. “I know.”

“You have one round left. You have to finish this.”

Alex was not going to decision. That much he knew. 

He tuned out the rest of what Dayo was yelling about, knowing that when it came down to it, he could finish the fight. He had to; he had no other options.

The fifth round started, and Alex knew what he was going to do. He waited again, dancing just out of Dominic’s reach, waiting for him to throw a punch. He did with the right, just like Alex was expecting, and he took it on the chin, taking a step backwards to balance himself. If Dominic was smart or less tired or better conditioned, he would keep coming, but he didn’t. 

Alex lunged forward, not giving him a chance to catch his breath, grabbing him around the middle and ripping him down to the mat with a smack. The blood was pounding so loudly in Alex’s ears that he could barely hear the roar of the crowd. He moved as quickly as he could, knew that the only reason he was still moving was because Dayo had conditioned him within an inch of his life. 

As the twenty thousand people looking down on him screamed, he flipped himself over Dominic, just like they had practiced a thousand times. He could feel Dominic scrambling under him, trying to get out, and he knew he had to move even faster. It didn’t matter that his ribs were screaming out in pain or that the cut over his eye had opened again or that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get any more air into his lungs. He had to keep moving, keep pushing, keep fighting, just for a few more seconds and then it would all be over.

He pinned Dominic down with his legs, pushing down as hard as he could and grabbing his arm, the other trapped underneath him. Dominic was panicking; Alex could see it in his eyes, felt it in the heat of his skin. He arched his back, holding onto Dominic’s arm as tight as he could, pulling back, and he closed his eyes.

And just like that, it was over.

After the fact, Alex didn’t remember Dominic tapping, didn’t remember the official pulling him off, helping him to his feet. It was all a blur, things happening faster than he could process. Dayo launched himself over the top of the cage into the ring, tackling Alex to the ground; Jackie and Mark and Nick followed, taking the longer route through the actual door of the cage, the boys dogpiling on top of them. Alex let out a roar from the bottom of the pile, finally releasing all the nerves and emotion and adrenaline that he had been keeping pushed down for so long.

Everything else fell away when Jackie pulled him to his feet. She was crying, giant tears rolling down her cheeks, and she hugged him hard, even though he was covered in blood and sweat. He buried his face in her neck, holding her there until she pulled back, grabbing his face. “I never doubted you,” she said, her voice low, and he had to lean in to hear her over the screams of the crowd and the commotion around them. “Not for a second.”

“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. There was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he felt like he needed to tell her, but there would be time. Neither of them were going anywhere.

* * *

Alex’s apartment was giant. But right now, with the amount of people packed into it, it looked incredibly small.

The couple of hours immediately after the fight had been a whirlwind. Bruce Buffer had presented Alex with the belt, strapping it around his waist as he raised his arms. There were microphones and cameras shoved in his face, Dana there to congratulate him, slapping him on the back, people moving around him, asking questions, telling him they knew he could do it. They pronounced him, once again, the reigning middleweight champion of the UFC. He felt pulled in a hundred different directions, and he loved every second of it.

He paid no attention to Dominic whatsoever.

The post-fight press conference went smoothly, Alex ignoring every word that came out of Dominic’s mouth, instead basking in the glory of his comeback. The belt sat proudly on the table in front of him, the lights and flashes from the camera reflecting off of it and sending beams of light in every direction. 

He came down off of the adrenaline high quickly, and all of a sudden everything hurt and he felt like he might pass out from exhaustion. All he wanted to do was go up to the skyloft and sleep for eighteen hours.

Jackie, of course, was not going to allow that to happen.

“Absolutely not,” she told him when he said he was going to bed, heading towards the elevators and already tugging off his tie. “You are not going to sleep.”

“Jackie, come on. I’m exhausted.”

“I will fight you on this one, and I will win.”

He knew there was no use arguing with her. At least she let him shower and change out of his post-fight suit before pushing him towards the door of the loft, back down the hallway and into the elevator and out the front door of the hotel into the McLaren. “What about all my stuff?” he asked as she was shoving him out into the hallway.

“We’ll come back and get it tomorrow.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Normally after a fight, he turned off his phone and his computer and slept for an entire day. Jackie usually joined him in his bed, and they watched shitty reality television and ordered shitty pizza and didn’t check their emails or their voicemail or any social media. It was one of Alex’s favorite traditions, but Jackie seemed hellbent on doing it differently this time.

He knew she had set up a party, something big and over the top, knew it as soon as they pulled into the underground lot of his apartment building, Jackie parking the car and tossing the keys to Alex over the top of it. He winced as he reached out to grab them, his ribs aching.

Jackie was quiet during the elevator ride up to the penthouse. Alex wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but he was too exhausted, a bone-aching weariness settling into his veins. Instead, he reached out, grabbing her hand and pressing it to his chest. He leaned his head back against the wall of the elevator, and he probably could have fallen asleep right there if he hadn’t been greeted by a cacophony of cheers when the doors slid open.

Everyone he loved was packed into his kitchen, crowded around the island and the dining room table, chairs pushed up against the walls to make room. People spilled out into the living room, and Bear scampered around everyone’s feet, practically knocking people over. Alex couldn’t help the grin that came over his face, even if it pulled at the cut on his forehead; he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this happy, knew it had been months and months.

He hooked his arm around Jackie’s neck, pulling her out of the elevator and into the crowd of people.

His mom was there, Natalie and Sophia flanking her. Dayo and Mark and Nick were already wandering around, having beaten them back to the apartment while Alex was in the shower at the loft. Miesha was there with her boyfriend, Cody and Urijah behind them. Leven and Jack were in the living room, sprawled across the couches and trying to set up a game of quarters on Alex’s three thousand dollar coffee table. All of the fighters from Valkyrie were there, pouring beers and handing out shots to anyone who walked through the kitchen. 

His heart was full. 

Alex dropped the belt onto the kitchen counter as Dayo came up, pulling him forward. God, it felt good to have it back in his house.

“Come on,” Dayo said, pushing him past the island and towards the balcony where the kegs were set up. “You deserve a beer.”

“More than one,” Mark said, popping up on his other side. The doors out to the balcony were propped open, the warm July breeze blowing through the apartment. There were a bunch of people out there, crowded around the kegs, all of them jumping to get Alex a plastic cup. It was Josh who handed it to him, clapping him on the back. 

“Thanks, man,” he said, taking a big gulp, the beer cold going down his throat, and he turned around, looking down over the balcony at the city. It was the first time that he had really had a moment alone since the fight had ended, or all day really, even with all of the people around him, and he closed his eyes. 

“Hey!” 

He jumped, jerking back and dropping his cup down the side of the twenty-story building. “Jesus Christ, Lev!”

She leaned forward, looking down at the ground. “Well. I hope you were finished with that.”

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

She went over to the keg, batting her eyes at the one of the fighters standing around it until they poured her a beer. “Here,” she said, turning it around and shoving it at Alex, barely managing to keep the beer in the cup. He grabbed it before she could cause any more damage.

“What’s with you?” he asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“You seem a little more edgy than normal.”

Leven rolled her eyes at him, pulling her hair up off her neck and tying it up. She rested her forearms on the balcony, dangling her cup precariously over the edge, and Alex had to fight the urge to slap it out of her hands just to teach her a lesson. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

He had gotten to know Leven really well over the last couple of months, to the point where he could usually tell what she was thinking without her having to say a word. He had seen her pissed off; he had seen her sad; he had seen her irritated and happy and in love. But now, for some reason, he couldn’t read her. It just seemed like she was off.

“I’m just tired,” she said, looking up at him. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”

“No. But you can say it as many times as you want.” He hit her elbow with his, and she smiled at him. 

“I am.” She rested her head on his shoulder, letting out a tiny sigh, so small he almost didn’t hear it. “I’m really proud.”

She didn’t seem like it, and he didn’t know if something was going on, if everything was okay with Mark, or if she was just being Leven, but he would deal with that tomorrow. He had a lifetime to figure her out. 

They ended up back in the living room, couches pushed towards the edges of the room, and a giant group of people spread out around the coffee table to play quarters. “Live a little, Alex,” Leven said, pouting at him when he opened his mouth to complain about how much that damn coffee table had cost him, and he shut up. 

He dropped down on the floor next to Jackie, and she handed him a quarter. He bounced it towards a cup on the opposite side of the table, and it landed in the beer with a splash. He grinned across the table at Jack. “Drink, Quaid.”

The game went on for a while, Alex eventually losing more than he won. Thank God his mom had left at some point, heading back to the hotel when the party started to morph from victory into fraternity. His brain was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges, his face and hands hot, and the pain in his ribs and his head completely forgotten. He sat with his back up against the couch, Leven on his lap, and she kept moving around, reaching forward, her hair falling in her face.

That was why he thought he saw Isabelle.

It was just a flash of dark hair and a white shirt, moving through the kitchen by the doors to the elevator. He jerked around, cracking his neck in the process and spilling Leven onto the ground. “Alex, what the hell?” she shrieked, trying to mop up beer with the hem of Jackie’s sweatshirt. Jackie took immediate offense to that, pushing Leven off and squealing. By the time they stopped fighting, Alex realized it was just Miesha he had seen, his eyes and the alcohol playing tricks on him.

“Sorry, Lev,” he said, turning back around.

“Sorry, Lev?” Jackie shrieked at him, hitting him in the arm. “It’s my clothing she just used as a mop!”

It had to be nearing three in the morning. Alex had lost track of the time and his phone was nowhere to be found so he couldn’t be sure, but it was late. The party was still raging on around them. Quarters had turned into beer pong, and beer had turned into shots. Mark and Leven had turned the living room into a dance floor, music blaring through the speakers by the television. Jackie had, at some point, ordered about fifty pizzas, dispersing them through the apartment like the mother hen she was. 

Alex had a couple of pieces, trying to take it easy. He had been drinking on an empty stomach, and he hadn’t had anything more substantial than chicken and egg whites for weeks. He left Cody and Miesha out on the balcony to go to the bathroom, slipping through the door and up the stairs. Someone was in his bathroom, Nick from the sound of it. Alex pounded on the door, but his brother wouldn’t come out, snapping “occupied” through the closed door. He tried Jackie’s room, but her bathroom door was locked too.

Goddammit.

He made his way slowly up the stairs to the third floor, holding onto the railing, his head spinning a little. The pool stretched out in front of him, the darkness of the sky above him, pricked with stars. He made it to the bathroom, inspecting the cut on his forehead in the mirror as he washed his hands. Not as bad as it felt. It might not even leave a scar this time. 

Alex double checked to make sure the door was still locked, sat down on the floor with his back against it and pulled the wad of paper he always had on him out of his pocket. He leaned his head back against the door, opening up to a random page, the familiar words washing over him. 

This whole night had been perfect. He had done everything that he had set out to do, everything that he had wanted. He had everything back. Everything except Isabelle. It wasn’t perfect without her here.

He knew Jackie would be worried about him, would start looking for him if he disappeared for too long, so he stood up carefully, balancing himself on the sink as he shoved the papers back into his pocket. 

He thought he was dreaming it. He thought he was drunk. He thought he was so tired he might be hallucinating. But it was real.

Isabelle was standing there, looking at him, when he opened the bathroom door.

He opened his mouth, closed it again. His brain felt like it was whiting out. He didn’t know how long he stood there like an idiot, not saying anything, when she finally stepped in.

“Hey.” She sounded exactly like he remembered, her voice low, and she looked the same. There was too much happening to take it in all at once, but he immediately noticed the Love bracelet around her left wrist. She looked skinnier and tanner than she had when he had last seen her, and her hair was longer, brushing the small of her back, but other than that she was exactly the same, still his Isabelle.

He opened his mouth again, not trusting his vocal cords to work. “Hey,” he finally ground out, cleared his throat and tried again. “I… uh… hey.”

Great start, Alex.

“What are you doing here?”

She shifted back and forth, twisting her hands together. Alex thought he might actually pass out. He had thought about this moment a lot, especially back at the beginning, right after she left. He thought about all the things that he would say if he saw her again, and right now none of those things were coming into his brain. 

Because she was Isabelle and because she was his soulmate, he didn’t need to say any of them.

“I missed you,” she said, her words tumbling out of her in a hurry, like she couldn’t speak them fast enough. “I missed you so much.” His breath caught in his throat. He wanted to say something, anything, but she kept going. “I know you don’t want me here,” she said. “But I just couldn’t stay away any longer.”

“Is that what you thought?” Alex’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat again. God, he sounded like a lunatic. “That I don’t want you?”

“That’s what you said, Alex.” Her words - “I’m in love with the way he says my name” - flitted through his head, and he realized how much he missed her voice. “You told me to go.”

“I was… stupid. I was lying.”

“You were lying?”

He took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“You said I was a distraction.” He winced, hearing again how horrible the words he had said actually were. “You said you didn’t want me around anymore.” She lowered her voice even more, looking at the ground. “You said you didn’t want to be reminded of this for the rest of your life.” She looked back up at him, her eyes full. “I was just trying to do what you wanted.”

“Isabelle,” Alex said, taking a step closer to her, waiting for her to back away. When she didn’t, he took another step. “You were always the only thing I wanted.”

She closed the gap between them. 

He had thought he remembered what it was like to kiss her, remembered it every time he closed his eyes. But it was nothing like the real thing. 

There were a lot of things that they still had to talk about, so much left that Alex had to say, had to make sure she knew, but there would be time enough for that, he hoped. For now, he stood there under the dome, kissing her until he couldn’t breathe. His ribs were cracked and his forehead was split open and his jaw was bruised, and he thought in that moment that he had never felt better. It would never get any better than this. 

* * *

When Alex woke up the next day, he kept his eyes shut. He was convinced it was all a dream, fueled by adrenaline and alcohol and emotion. But when he finally opened them, Isabelle was right there next to him in bed, still sleeping, like they had just rewound the clock about eight months. He rolled over, wincing in pain, and propped his head up on his arm, looking at her.

There were a couple of times over the last few months that he wondered if he had built their relationship up in his head, if he had made it into more than it was. Last night was the final defining answer that no, he had not. She was everything he had remembered and more. She was the best he had ever had.

He never ended up going back down to the party, but he wasn’t sure anyone actually missed him at that point. They barely made it back to his bedroom, Alex kicking Nick out of the bathroom and thanking God he was far too drunk to notice Isabelle behind him, holding onto the back of his shirt. He locked the door behind them, double checking it so that Jackie or Leven or Mark didn’t barge in, as they were wont to do, especially during parties. 

Isabelle moved over him carefully, pushing him back onto the bed, taking care not to brush up against his ribs. “Does this hurt?” she asked, running her fingers over his chest. He shook his head, closing his eyes. She leaned over, brushing her lips to his ear and moving her hands lower. “How about this?”

Alex grunted, lights flashing behind his eyes. 

It was the best night of his life.

They stayed up for hours, Alex tracing his fingers over her stomach as they talked about everything. He tried to explain to her what had been going on in his head after the last fight, how he had been feeling and why he thought he wasn’t good enough for her. She cried as he talked about it, burying her face in his chest. She told him what she had been doing since she had left, that she had gone home to Atlanta and then to Paris to see Madeline. She told him that she had seen the press conference in April, that that’s when she had decided to come back.

“I was trying to keep track of you as best I could,” she told him. “But you damn near disappeared.”

“So did you,” he shot back. “I checked your Instagram every fucking morning and there was never anything there.”

“Well, great minds think alike.” 

He told her that Jack had given him her journal, pulling the folded, faded, creases pieces of paper out of the pocket of his pants, giving them back to her. “You read all this,” she said, flipping through it.

“Every day.”

She kissed him for a long time after that, unwilling or unable to stop.

She told him that she had kept it a secret from everyone, that Madeline had flown in and come with her to the fight and they had sat at the back of the arena, gripping each other’s hands. “I knew you would win. I knew it as soon as you announced that you were coming back. I wasn’t going to miss that.” She told him that Leven had spotted her after the fight, told her about the party. So that’s why Leven had been acting so weird; he was going to kill her for it later. 

He told her how sorry he was, over and over and over again, kissing it into her mouth and tracing it into her skin, holding her so tightly he was sure she would have bruises in the morning. 

And finally, he told her that he was in love with her, that he had been in love with her, that she was his soulmate. Her eyes flashed bright at the words. He wasn’t going to let her go again.

Alex got up as carefully as he could, not wanting to disturb her. He shut the bathroom door behind him, running the water and leaning over the sink, looking at his face. It didn’t look as bad as it felt, only a little bruising around his eyes and the stitches cutting across his forehead. He was sure Dominic felt a whole lot worse than he did.

Isabelle was awake when he got done with his shower, sitting up in bed. The makeup around her eyes was smudged and she had a hickey splashed across her neck, and Alex thought that she had never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment. “Hey,” she said, smiling at him when she caught him staring. “Whatcha doing?”

He leaned against the doorframe. “Taking back Poland.” She put her phone down. “How about you?”

“I’m starving,” she said. “I’ve been craving Angelo’s pancakes. Honestly, I think I might have missed those more than I missed you.”

He would let that slide for now, and he pulled on his sweatpants. “Okay, come on.”

It was past noon, but they hadn’t fallen asleep until about six in the morning. Even so, Alex had never felt better. He peeked around the corner into the kitchen, pulling Isabelle with him once he saw that it was empty. Ava must have been there early that morning; there was no indication that there had even been a party the night before.

Thankfully, Angelo had left pancakes in the refrigerator because Alex was completely useless at making them himself. Isabelle jumped up on the counter, sitting there while he warmed them up for her. He couldn’t stop turning around to look at her, a smile permanently planted on his face. “Stop that,” she finally told him, blushing. She pushed her empty plate towards the sink. 

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“God, Alex.” She rolled her eyes, wrinkling her nose at him. 

“Sorry, Fuhrman.” He shrugged, moving closer to her, slipping his hands around her waist. “You’re just gonna have to get used to it.”

Alex got a little bit carried away after that, pushing Isabelle onto her back on the counter, moving over top of her. He was suddenly very grateful that Jackie insisted they get the extra large slab of marble for the counter even though it cost more than Alex’s first and second cars put together, although he was certain that she would frown upon this usage of it.

They were broken apart by a scream, not a shriek or a yelp or a gasp, but a genuine, ear-splitting scream. Alex jerked backwards, yanking his pants up and sliding off the counter. He knew his entire face was bright red, but he turned around as calmly as he could muster considering she had just seen his bare butt. “Oh hey, Jackie. What’s up?”

She was standing there with Dayo, her mouth dropped open, staring at them. “I - what - you -”

Isabelle sat up, pulling Alex’s t-shirt down. “Hey,” she said, smiling at Jackie, who immediately burst into tears, shoving Alex out of the way with more force than he could have thought possible and grabbing Isabelle, pulling her into a hug. Alex looked at Dayo, who just shrugged, the grin on his face as big as the one on Alex’s.

He could barely get Isabelle away from Jackie after that. Jackie kept shoving him away when he tried to get in between them, eventually pulling Isabelle into her office and slamming the door shut.

Everything was back to normal. Everything was back to how it should be. 

* * *

It was like nothing had changed, like they hadn’t just spent an agonizing eight months apart. Isabelle moved back in; there was never any question that she would. They didn’t even talk about it really, just assumed that it would happen, and the next day when they were all a little less hungover they made a trip to her apartment to get all of her stuff. 

The first thing Alex saw when he walked into her room was himself. She had pictures of them everywhere, taped around the mirror, propped up next to her bed, shoved into the window frame. Her laptop was open on her bed, her screensaver the same picture from Thanksgiving that was on his computer back at the penthouse. There were two copies of the Sports Illustrated issue with him on the cover lying on the window seat. 

“Jesus, Iz,” he said, turning a circle in the small room. “Are you stalking me?”

“Shut up,” she said, pushing him back to stand in the doorway. No wonder she liked his apartment so much; this place was tiny. But it was cute and neat and looked exactly like Isabelle, life and color and light filling the space. It only took them a couple of hours to throw everything into every box or tote bag or suitcase they could find, carrying it out the garden level to the Escalade and shoving it all precariously into the back.

They had family dinner that night, everyone crowding around the table. Nick practically had a heart attack when he got off the elevator to see Isabelle sitting at the kitchen counter, dropping the full bottle of champagne onto the kitchen floor where it shattered. “Isabelle?”

“Nick!”

Jackie’s door flew open. “Nicholas!” She turned around, exasperated, yelling back into her office. “Dayo!”

“Alex!” Alex bellowed, everyone turning to look at him. “What?” He shrugged. “No one was saying my name.” There was glass and champagne everywhere, Jackie shooing everyone out of the kitchen so that she could clean it up. She had been so happy since Isabelle had gotten back that Alex thought he might be able to kill someone and get away with it. 

They took a couple of weeks off, all of them - even Dayo and Jackie. Dayo left the gym in Mark’s hands, taking Jackie away to Bora Bora, just like she had been wanting. It was no surprise to anyone when they came back engaged.

Alex was just starting to think about what was next for him when Dana called, offering him another fight. He took it without question. It was like they all said, like he always knew: he was a fighter. This was what he did, and he would do it until he physically couldn’t anymore. There was always going to be time and opportunities to coach after that, but he was in better shape than ever, and he never could pass up a fight. 

Isabelle quit her job at the PR firm so that she could focus on writing full time. She didn’t know what she wanted to do yet, but Alex found her in the office every single morning, her laptop open and a full cup of coffee by her side, typing away. She never let him see what she was working on, but she assured him that the second she was ready he would be the first to know.

He couldn’t believe his luck, and in the days after she came back, he realized that he was still expecting to wake up every morning to a cold bed and a heavy heart, the same way he had been for months. One morning, just a week after the fight, he woke up and she was gone. So he did what he did best and panicked.

He practically fell through the door of his room in his haste to get downstairs and see if her keys were hanging up on the rack next to his, but he didn’t make it there, skidded to a stop at the door of the office when he saw the light was on. The weight lifted off his chest immediately.

“Hey,” she said, turning to look at him. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking up at the belt hanging over his desk. 

“I thought you left.”

She frowned, reaching her hand out to him, and he took it, stepping closer. “I’m not going anywhere, Alex.”

He put his arms around her, breathing in her smell, closing his eyes. “I know.”

Isabelle turned to face him, reaching her arms up around his neck, cupping his cheek with her hand. “You can’t get rid of me again. So don’t even try.”

He tightened his grip around her waist. “Never again.”

They stood there like that for a while, the hot sun of early morning streaming in through the windows, bouncing off the belt and sending blinding flashes of light dancing across the room. “It’s really something, isn’t it?” Isabelle said to him, turning to look at it again. 

For so long, Alex had resisted putting it up, had thought that if he did, someone might take it from him. He had since realized that that was a possibility, that everyone, at some point, would fall. But now, looking at it didn’t make him feel scared or nervous or anxious. It reminded him that he could come out the other side, that he would emerge on top, better than ever. 

Isabelle, like always, read his mind, turning back to him. “The next time you forget who you are,” she said, “remember who I am and that I love you.” 

He was back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading this, i cannot say thank you enough.
> 
> from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> xx


End file.
